123. Drifting off

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TV

Here's one that suggests the most pathetic Venn diagram of all time. I'm currently re-watching Wonderfalls and season one of Eureka and I would be watching season one of Warehouse 13 except no one has managed to get it on YouTube (or I haven't found it). (Incidentally, this may mean that Alison is considered to be hotter than Myka -- a judgement I wouldn't dispute.) 

There is only one overlap of these three 'verses -- and for Warehouse 13 it doesn't happen until a later season -- but somewhere in the potential (though not actual) audience for my blog there are a few people who would know what actor these three shows share.

What's more interesting is why I'm re-watching these programs (including the one I can't access). Surprisingly, the obvious appeal of Jaye, Alison, and Myka is not the answer. (Though I can't say for sure that I would have watched these shows without them.) It seems to be some sort of comfort food thing.  

Vertigo

We've moved on to another chapter and another narrator -- this time in Austria (the Tyrol). All the narrators are similarly uncomfortable and yet avid travelers. One wonders why they go to the trouble. They are also all writers/journalists. 

There's a pleasantly dreamlike quality to this confused progression from point of view to point of view with no particular purpose in view. Rather like peeking in on someone else's dreams. For the most part, the settings overlap in featuring the Italian Po valley and then north through the Alps to Vienna. The first one might have wandered further than this, but I don't think any of the subsequent ones have. 


Well, it seems that I'm even slower on the uptake then I realized. Just now, walking home, I was pondering what it was about these narrations that appealed to me when it suddenly struck me that it was that the narrators (except for Stendhal) are all solitary travelers using public transit and often writing in public places. Aside from the neurotic problems sleeping or leaving their lodgings or leaving a particular neighborhood, these accounts could be mine. 

And why would you travel if you are constantly beset by these problems? Are they trying to escape problems that are even worse at home? Or is taking their neuroses on the road a welcome diversion from their normal lives? 

In any case, I've always thought accounts from this point of view would be too dull to find an audience, but apparently that isn't quite true. Since Stendhal, there has been no sex that I can recall and scarcely any plot. And the Stendhal chapter (not unlike Doctor Faustus) had just enough sex to give the narrator syphilis. At one point there seemed to be people following a narrator at the same time a rash of murders were taking place, but it was never clear if this was reality or in the narrator's imagination. 


Same Tyrolian chapter and there has just been a reference to a family ancestor who died at Marengo. So there's that.

In a sort of branching out of a story in which almost nothing happens, we're now getting the family history of some childhood neighbors of the narrator. Here's the bit I really like (no idea why): 

p215 ...Whether it was Babett and Bina who had the idea of opening the cafe, or whether Baptist thought that it would support his unmarried sisters, was a part of the story that nobody could recall anymore. At all events, there had been a Cafe Alpenrose, and it had continued until the deaths of Babett and Bina, although nobody had ever set foot in it...

Every week they bake a new cake and place it under glass for customers who never arrive. Every two weeks, they split the stale cake between them. In the same large house there is also a doctor's "surgery" that is almost as unattended since almost everyone in the community depends on the elderly local doctor and not the stranger doctor from Moravia.

This place makes Martha Grimes's Hotel Paradise seem thriving by comparison. Perhaps the cafe is even more like the little shops run by Emma's spinster friends with the hair chewing cat?

Why does this appeal to me when I get so bored when I'm not busy at work? Spending my days in a cafe without customers would drive me insane. Yet the idea is quite charming.

OMG! There was a sex act and a suspicious death. I need a moment...


The book wraps up... well, it ends rather abruptly after the narrator decides to leave his hometown and sets off across Europe and then England by train. The last we know of him he has nodded off while reading Samuel Pepy's diary and is dreaming Pepy's account of the Great Fire of London.

Off hand, I can't think of a stranger novel I've actually read. (And no, we never learn any more about the suspicious death.) I can't think who I would recommend this to or how I would go about recommending it. None the less, I probably will re-read it. And W.G. Sebald has certainly given me something new to think about when it comes to fiction.

Next - 124. Cultivating our garden

122. Venice

Previous - 121. In which Hegel fails us

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Candide

Chapter 20. Martin the Manichee. I do like Candide's method for choosing a traveling companion and how he spends his time on a long voyage arguing philosophy -- rather like a Carnaval "The Magic Mountain" cruise. Martin seems to be a fairly one-sided Manichee. The whole appeal of Manicheanism is that it reflects the obvious reality that the world is filled with both good and evil. Unless you're a monotheistic theologian, this view is hard to beat. 

I don't think I wrote about Eldorado, It is always interesting to think about what life would be like without the usual economic concerns (lotto fantasies). Did Voltaire make it clear that it was not wealth but the virtue of the people that made Eldorado special? Gold and gem stones had no inherent value in Eldorado. Also, I can't recall why Candide's last "sheep" is red -- right! This is some confused notion of llamas or alpacas which are also supposed to be faster than Andalusian horses. Why not? 

Alas, no. There is very little about the economy of Eldorado. It is merely given that it is a universally comfortable kingdom. Voltaire seems to be content to leave nobility in its station, though he is happy to take down the monks and priests. In short we are given no clue as to why Eldorado is such a fortunate place. Does Voltaire really confuse gold and gems for wealth? I can't really make anything of this account.

Vertigo

p132 ... The opera, said Salvatore [the character's source of information in Milan], is not what it used to be. [He's referring to La Scala] The audience no longer understand that they are part of the occasion. In the old days the carriages used to drive down the long wide road to the Porta Nuovo in the evenings, out through the gateway, and westward under the trees along the glacis, skirting the city, till nightfall. Then everyone turned back. Some drove to the churches for the "Ave Maria della Sera", some stopped here on the Bra and the gentlemen stepped up to the carriages to converse with the ladies, often till well into the dark. The days of stepping up to a carriage are over, and the days of the opera also....


Since opera (along with rap) is one of the few forms of music I have no interest in, this passage shouldn't affect me, and yet it does. And not just because this reminds me just a little of young Marcel's sightseeing of the carriages of his idols in the Bois. At heart I guess I'm just a very conflicted petit bourgeois boy. 

Venice

Both Candide and Vertigo have progressed chapter by chapter since I last mentioned them but now both stories are in Venice. Vertigo hits Venice every chapter or so. Venice had a very unique status in Europe for centuries, until Napoleon in fact. And even after that the city had a special status in Hapsburg Germany until the Risorgimento. And since then, Venice has still had its spectacular charm, growing ever more wabi sabi over the generations.

I wonder if Hong Kong will continue to maintain its independent identity over time? It's my impression (based on very little) that Shanghai still maintains a hint of the identity it acquired before the Communist takeover, so maybe Hong Kong will survive in that sense.

From what I've read, Venice's continued existence as a true city -- as opposed to a tourist destination and resort for the wealthy (like Aspen) -- is also in doubt. But then that, at least in part, goes back to the question of what people in the future will do in an age of robots and AI. But then, when you read about Venice how often do you learn about what the people are doing? Aside from the arsenal and the glass industry, the public face of Venice has always been the service industry.

Candide p63 [Pococurante is dismissing the whole of classical and contemporary art and literature] -Oh what a superior man, said Candide... what a great genius this Pococurante must be! Nothing can please him...

-Don't you see, said Martin, that he is disgusted with everything he possesses? Plato said, a long time ago, that the best stomachs are not those which refuse all food.

-But, said Candide, isn't there pleasure in criticizing everything, in seeing faults where other people think they see beauties?

-That is to say, Martin replied, that there's pleasure in having no pleasure? ...

Which?

There's a point where it's hard to tell if you're being wisely cautious or just procrastinating and being lazy. I want to return to the gym, but then I find myself dealing with some residue (literally) of my cold or I wake up at 7am and it's freezing cold (for here) and going out in my shorts just seems ill considered. 

It will (presumably) eventually get warmer -- this is usually when we have some of our nicest weather -- and then I can throw myself into getting back in shape. It's not like I'm training for a marathon. But I still feel lazy.

Haguro

I've talked about the Pacific War battles that are great stories, but another way of talking about that war is to tell the story of a class of warships. I've sort of done this already by talking about the role of the U.S.S. Independence class (and of the CVEs) in the American victory, but to tell the story of the entire war the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Myōkō-class heavy cruisers might be the best choice.

The IJN, as a rule, operated sister ships together so that ships operating together would have similar characteristics (speed and armament, for example). In 1942 the Myōkō-class ships were not the newest or most powerful heavy cruisers in the IJN -- all four had been placed in commission in the late 1920's -- but they were fine examples of the superiority of IJN heavy cruisers over the ships of every other navy of the time. If you had been the commander of a USN heavy cruiser, say the U.S.S. Houston serving with the Asiatic Fleet, you might have been a little concerned that the Myōkō-class ships had 10 x 8" guns in 5 turrets vs your 9 x 8" guns in 3 turrets. What you wouldn't have realized was that those 8" guns were their secondary armament. Their main "battery" really consisted of launchers for the amazing Long Lance torpedo. For the first year of the war Allied ships would suddenly blow up and sink and no one on the Allied side knew why.

The reason the Myōkō-class is perfect for telling the story of the entire war is that all four ships of the class worked together during the invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942 and took part in the Battles of the Java Sea where they utterly dominated their Allied foes, and, while having participated in many of the intervening battles and campaigns, all four ships survived into late 1944 when the war returned to the waters of Indonesia and the Philippines. Here they again faced the Allies when roles were completely reversed. Instead of the IJN having all the advantages, as in 1942, in 1944 and 1945 the USN and Royal Navy were dominant everywhere. All four Myōkō-class ships were battered and sunk by the full spectrum of Allied strength: Aircraft, submarines, and surface ships. 

In early 1942 the Allies didn't have a chance. In late 1944 and 1945, the IJN didn't have a chance. The battles in the middle of the Pacific and in the middle of 1942 into 1943 are the most famous because the opponents were evenly matched, but the events before and after are in some ways more revealing.  

Next - 123. Drifting off

121. In which Hegel fails us

Previous - 120. A thought experiment

Trump

I can't remember now what I expected, but I am surprised how the bull shit is snowballing even week to week. You'd think they would want to pace themselves. 

That said, I do think I've made some sense out of Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts" assertion. Really I don't know what she meant, but I think it may be true that there are sociologically valid facts that are not "true" but that a substantial percentage of people believe anyway. Rather like religion. Actually a lot like religion. 

If large numbers of people are determined to believe a given conspiracy theory or that their favorite invisible sky-faeries have a particular characteristic, then these statements are "true" for them even when they are not true in any objective sense. The question then becomes, Why do they believe these particular statements? And to answer this "why" question you don't need journalists but psychologists and sociologists. And, as with Franco's Spain, scientists and journalists are only seen as being beneficial to society when they support the distorted view. 

Avoiding needless synthesis

Today I was helping an online friend reduce the word count in a piece of fiction she's working on. This got me thinking about the "don't mention things that are not crucial to your story" rule and how William Faulkner breaks this rule -- and how glad we are that he does. Just thinking about Faulkner took me back to Methodism and it occurred to me that Methodism played a similar role in America in the 19th century to the role Puritanism played in England in the 17th century. (And Calvinism in Europe in the 16th century?) 

So I'm seeing a natural (human?) cycle here but I'm not seeing synthesis in the Hegelian sense. If the secular trend in European history is the thesis, and the frantically religious response to that is the antithesis, where is the synthesis? As with the political fluctuation in the final century of the Roman Republic, I see a social machine getting more and more out of balance and on the verge of flying apart, not a culture on the verge of achieving some compromise viewpoint.

The Classics

Recently YouTube has decided I'm interested in seeing clips from the movie Gladiator -- and my then clicking on them hasn't discouraged this. But seeing these clips has got me thinking about Rome, and then Greece. 

When you read Thucydides and Xenophon, or Livy and Polybius, you inevitably come to identify with the Athenians and Romans. The Athenians are just so modern. And after learning the art of war and the art of politics by reading the history of generation after generation after generation of Romans, you feel like you are a Roman. So it's easy to overlook the reality that by their glory times both states were pretty despicable. Perhaps they are despicable in ways that are easier for us to comprehend than was the case with many of their contemporaries, but that doesn't change the fact that they were a nasty lot that you wouldn't want anything to do with if you weren't a member of their gang. 

It's hard to not wish there was some way Alcibiades could have been brought back into the Athenian state to lead their defense against the Persians, but then again, it's hard to argue that they didn't get exactly what they deserved. 

It's hard to not wish there were better defenders of the Republic at the end than the insufferable Cicero and the vapid Cato.  But even if we accept Cicero's account that he wasn't the usual rapacious provincial proconsul, he was supporting a system that was rapacious to the core. Again, it's hard to argue that the Republic deserved to continue in the form it had taken at that time.

And all this is equally true with America. Even if you give us a pass for our first hundred years on account of the times, even if you forgive the unparalleled terror tactics of WW2, as poetic justice for what the Germans and Japanese started, I don't see how you can justify the sins of the post war years. And even if you do decide the Cold War is an adequate excuse for what we did to the Congo and Chile and Somalia and all the rest, that still leaves everything since 9/11. 

So, when it comes down to it, Trump is just an instance of reaping what you sow and of just desserts. I still hope American Democracy will prove strong enough to shake off this disaster, but if not, it's not like we didn't have this coming.

Next - 122. Venice

120. A thought experiment

Previous - 119. Catching up

Transit

MUNI, the local transit agency for San Francisco, is both amazingly busy (for an American transit system) and amazingly incompetent. I happened to move to SF the summer they replaced their electric trolley buses. 

That was 40 years ago. That generation of new buses was replaced eventually and some of those replacement buses are still on the road today... 

...along with an even newer generation just coming into service in the past year. 

The trolleys got quieter, than louder, and now quieter again. The system for notifying the operator you want to get off, has gotten more elaborate to better serve the disabled, elderly, short, and those standing in the center aisle. Operators gained the ability to adjust their mirrors remotely (a huge time saver when shifts change) and battery backup so they don't get stuck in intersections without power. (Though I do sometimes miss the days when riders had to get out to help push the bus out of an intersection.) They gained the ability to carry wheelchairs and scooter (and now strollers) and the most recent generation has lowered the floor to make this process easier. 

What's unique about the newest generation (which also successfully tackled the problem of the truly vile off-gassing of new plastics) is that the new trolley buses, for the first time, visually match the motor coaches. They are identical except for the poles on the roof. 

This is a purely cosmetic factor, I was about to say, except that, now I think of it, it isn't at all. I assume that, apart from the motors and engines -- drive trains, if you will -- there is probably a great deal of commonality (in parts, for example) between the electric and hybrid buses which should make maintenance simpler. I have no idea how significant this really is. 

I totally lucked out in scheduling my exploratory visit to SF in May of 1976, just before the prior generation of trolley buses were replaced. I got to ride several of those old beasts. 

They looked like they were from the '30s or '40s. Their motors where amazingly loud. SF does have a great transit museum collection and they do still have at least one of these old trolleys that I see when they occasionally bring out the old equipment. 

MUNI, I've heard, is close to introducing a third generation of light-rail trains -- the first generation started service a year or more after I arrived. But BART, the only heavy rail, mass transit operator here, is still using it's original equipment from the early '70s, though they are in the process of introducing replacement trains. I assume this means that heavy rail is both more efficient by carrying many more people on their tracks (with lower labor costs -- more passengers per operator), but also by getting more years of service out of their investment in rolling stock. And yet almost all new service these days seems to be light-rail. It makes no sense to me. 

It's time...

...for a political thought experiment. Imagine if you will that the U.S. Supreme Court decides the recent Presidential election is void due to Russian interference and orders a new election to be held in June of this year. People of sanity breath a sigh of relief. Clinton already won the popular vote and it's reasonable to think that she would pick up a significant percentage of Stein supporters (I can't actually imagine Stein deferring to Clinton for this election because politicians are ego maniacs). Also some percentage of the people on the left who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton (a woman) will rethink that decision now and some percentage of people who voted for Trump will be having buyer's remorse. So it's all good, right? No.

It's my understanding that more eligible voters failed to vote than voted for either major candidate. Normally these (don't give a fuck) voters aren't a factor, but in my thought experiment I think they might be. First off, I doubt many of them are Clinton supporters. Politically engaged liberals vote. Aside from the already mentioned segment that couldn't bring themselves to vote for a woman, I suspect most of these non-voters are screw-the-system types who don't vote because they assume The System is rigged against them. But not any more. Now they have a screw-the-system President. (I concede that this view explains why my prediction that Trump would win the popular vote was wrong without really being wrong.) 

So, in my June election thought experiment I think, as Trump has asserted, he would not only win the Electoral College but the popular vote as well.

Next - 121. In which Hegel fails us

119. Catching up

Previous - 118. Evola & the Alt-right

I'm out!

There's a break in our storms and I'm feeling human (and can control my cough) so I'm out at the nearest Peet's. I've decided, based on my personal history, that this is my 40 year cold (like a 100 year flood), and I can live with that. Especially since that would put the next occurrence when I am 104 and I have no intention of living that long. (I'm ignoring the obvious truth that 100 year storms don't fall on the exact year and that, due to age, an individuals natural rhythms, if they exist at all, change radically near the end... rather like a serial novel tends to get very excited near the conclusion, I'm thinking here of a novel by, I think Tolstoy, where in the final chapter or two he killed off nearly his whole cast.)

Anyway, the sun is shining (periodically) I'm enjoying iced tea and an oatmeal, wheat germ, chocolate cookie I've never tried before (good, but not quite as good as I was hoping -- this isn't Tartine), and I'm writing. Which is not to say I haven't been writing the past three weeks, I have. But I haven't felt up to organizing and editing and deciding what to publish. It's been a bit like being drunk, but without the intoxication, or inspiration. 

I'm keen to return to Candide and Vertigo and to start integrating my Books for Living notes, but first I want to say a few words about illness. After all, if life gives you illness the least you can do it think and write about it.

Unfortunately, this ties in really nicely with some ideas in Will Schalbe's Books for Living, so it's going to be tricky to bring these two conversations together in time. In a few words, the central idea of Schwalbe's book, and this comes from his fondness for Lin Yutang, is that there's a good deal to say in favor of being lazy -- of not rushing through life like a good Calvinist. 

This is an easy sell for me since I've always believed people were in too much of a rush to get someplace for rather unexamined reasons. Still, I had a bunch of plans for this month. I was going to paint a wall in my apartment. I was going to convince my HOA to let me paint the remaining unpainted surfaces in our entry/hallway. I was going to go into training mode at the gym in preparation for the start of greening season in April. None of these things have happened because life gave me a seemingly endless series of heavy rain storms and then stuck me in my apartment feeling like shit and coughing in such a way that the inhabitants of Hans Castorp's Berghof would have been complaining to management. One of the reasons I'm out today is to get a better idea if I'm ready to return to the gym tomorrow (no). 

As rarely as I'm sick, and as much as I hate being sick, I've always felt that illness was an effective way to "reboot" the system. (Fainting, can have a similar effect.) The first week I continued to do the exercises I usually do at home -- mostly stretching and core strengthening -- but eventually I embraced the "holiday-from-my-routine" aspect of being ill and today I did my exercises for the first time in at least a week. (It's pouring rain out the window right now.) And today I didn't feel any different doing my exercises and, I'm surprised to say, my back has been, if anything, better these past several weeks. 

That doesn't mean I'm rethinking my exercise routine, but it does argue for taking a real holiday from that routine periodically. I've intended to do that, but found it very difficult to "lose ground" by not exercising for a week or two. Well, my cold took care of that. I'm pretty confident I will be recharged when I can finally resume my usual fitness routine and when I can get back to things like painting -- assuming it ever stops raining.

Neighborhood update

The cable car over-ride switch has finally been fixed, after about a month of delaying traffic on a major SF surface street. 

(I was wrong about the switch being fixed, it's still broken. The lights must have timed out just as the cable car was leaving the intersection.)

Construction is inching forward at the two buildings on my alley now doing extensive remodeling work. (But the alley is still filled with trucks so I still can't schedule my gravel delivery.) Construction has been complete in our lower level unit since December, but there's still no new tenant... no clue why not. Still haven't been able to schedule a painter to show up and do our little hallway job. 

Salesforce Tower is still taking form on our skyline. It hasn't risen any higher, but it appears they are preparing the "base" for the cap that will push it to its full height in the next month or so. The sinking and tilting residential tower across the street is, last I heard, still sinking and tilting, but not that you would notice from the street. The resulting litigation is more noticeable at the moment.

The seed for the amazing burst of development that has transformed the China Basin/Mission Creek area was the baseball stadium (now AT&T Park) that was built by the Giants without public funding. (There were a number of referendums about the City contributing and the public consistently said, "Hell no.") The Giants brought in new ownership, built a great stadium and a great team, and it has just been announced that they finished paying off the stadium at the end of 2016. They are now in the process of developing the area to the south of McCovey Cove which will be transitioning from a periodically used parking lot (I've worked events there any number of times) to our latest new neighborhood with the usual combination of residential, retail, and some commercial development. 

I have to stress this a little, the Oakland Athletics are wandering around the East Bay -- like an immature sea gull begging food from all the adult sea gulls -- trying to get someone to give them money for a new stadium. The Giants built their own stadium, which spurred so much development around the stadium as to make the neighborhood almost unrecognizable for people (like me) who worked there in the early '90s. Now the, previously deserted boondocks, area to the south is also booming and they are going to reap the rewards there with a new development they are also financing themselves. This is the way cities should work, self-funding improvement by adding value to previously marginal lots. Also, since this area is right on the bay, the new development has to anticipate and deal with the rise in sea level. (How effectively they are doing this is open to doubt, but at least it's being addressed.)

Next - 120. A thought experiment

118. Evola & the Alt-right

Previous - 117. The Dashwoods

Link to Table of Contents

Social Contract

I keep coming back in my mind to America's Social Contract. Regardless of where John Locke and the guys may have wanted to start, the American Social Contract started with protecting the right of Europeans to view Native Americans and Africans as being less than human. As not having legal standing except as chattel.

The next American "revolution" was when abolitionists attacked this notion with regard to Africans which lead to the Civil War and the end of "slavery" as an institution. But when it comes down to it, it seems like Americans are not that interested in other "people's" interests when their own economic interest is involved. Many of the "Sagebrush Rebellion" issues have to do with continued exploitation of Native lands. 

The problem, in a world of robot manufacturing and the land being stressed by human population growth, is how are non-tech savvy Americans to be made whole? And this is far more than just an American problem. Because someone will find something for these people to do, just as Mussolini and Hitler did.


Perhaps, just as we need a multitude of gods and religions to suit our individual or group needs, there is no one political system that suits all people. It sounds like you're joking when you point out that the weakness of Italian Fascism was the need to pit Italian nationalism against some external force, but this does seem to be an essential requirement for all forms of extreme nationalism, and I'm sure America First-ism will tend in the same direction. I'm not even in a position to say that this isn't a necessary feature. This comes down to cultural anthropology and sociology. It may well be that the EU has pushed peace in Europe, for example, about as far as it can go. Perhaps radical pruning isn't an accident, but a necessity for European success. It certainly looks like something periodically pushes Europeans toward war.

Continued...

I've been holding onto this for days because I'm still dwelling in The House of Phlegm... (now with minimal hearing in my left ear due to congestion. Dr. Time seems to finally be getting the better of this vile plague. Maybe.)

But now I need to make this already too long post even longer as I just ran into not one, but two intriguing pieces from Medium. I will include the links below. 

I guess I'm going to start with this piece on "The Alt-right Is a Doomsday Cult." It's almost like the author has been reading my blogs. There are references to Nietzsche and to Mussolini -- and I now I have to do some research on Julius Evola. There's even a new (to me) use of "kali" to describe the period of time when Kali dances. (How have I missed Evola? His connection with Hermetic philosophy links straight back to the original Faust writings.) 

Here's a striking quote from Wiki: 

"The Jews were stigmatized, not as representatives of a biological race, but as the carriers of a world view, a way of being and thinking—simply put, a spirit—that corresponded to the ‘worst’ and ‘most decadent’ features of modernity: democracy, egalitarianism and materialism."^[20]

And:

Paul Furlong wrote that "The complete Evola held views that it is fair, if somewhat summary, to categorise as elitist, racist, anti-semitic, misogynist, anti-democratic, authoritarian, and deeply anti-liberal."^[7]

And finally, the real shocker:
Evola died unmarried, without children, on 11 June 1974 in Rome.

I did a quick search and found this link where the internet, in it's occult wisdom, reveals that 63% of respondents think Evola was gay. That's what I was thinking as well. And not just because he was a Barone.

Now to our second piece on the suppression of science in Franco's Spain. Now here we see exactly what I thought we should see in fascism in general, if its enemy was truly the bourgeoisie (Evola is quite clear on this in his theory of "castes.") Some quotes,

The new council ["the central agency responsible for advancing Spanish science research and exchanges with foreign scientists"] was meant to bring back a view of science that would make it compatible with conservative Catholic values, mandating it to “restore the classical and Christian unity of the sciences that was destroyed in the 18th Century.” In other words, he wanted to turn back the clock to pre-Enlightenment times...

“The Franco regime defended the literalism of the Bible, which was considered an infallible account, inspired by the word of God,” said Manuel Castillo Martos, a professor at the University of Seville and co-author of Education, Science and Ideology in Spain (1890–1950). “Scientific ideas that contradicted it, such as Darwinist evolution, were considered unacceptable.”

Now we have Naphta's doctrine made law. Given that The Magic Mountain was published in 1926 and Franco came to power 1936-1939, and that we know (from Primo Levi) that "everyone" was reading the book after it was published, one has to wonder just how influential it really was. 

The Nazis were not in a position, during the late 1930s and 1940s, to be purists when it came to bourgeois science, since they had a war to lose. But was there a long term plan to adapt something similar to (though less Catholic than) the Spanish approach to science? How would I.G. Farben have felt about that? Again, I'm not quite interested enough in this to actually read National Socialist texts. There should be a way to leave idea seeds on Medium in hopes that someone else will do your work for you.

No power to the slaves

I included a Franco quote above and then removed it because it didn't relate to what I was addressing just then, but I want to come back to it now.

“We do not believe in government through the voting booth,” he said. “The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box. Spain has no foolish dreams.”

And this goes nicely with Evola's thoughts on caste,

In Revolt Against the Modern World, Evola developed a "general objective law: the law of the regression of the castes", claiming that "[t]he meaning of history from the most ancient times is this: the gradual decline of power and type of civilization from one to another of the four castes - sacred leaders, warrior nobility, bourgeoisie (economy, "merchants") and slaves - which in the traditional civilizations corresponded to the qualitative differentiation in the principal human possibilities."^[13]

I don't think Fyodor Dostoevsky would have much of a problem with this. And neither would Naphta, of course. Though I imagine there would be some debate about who decides what between the "sacred leaders" and the "warrior nobility." And isn't it interesting that he chose the word "slaves" for the lowest caste (I'm assuming this is a decent translation.) I imagine Ford Madox Ford was familiar with Evola, I do wonder what he thought of these, Tory-er than thou views.

I do notice a couple problems for the Alt-right in installing these ideas in the New World. As Dostoevsky was aware, the U.S.A. is a pure bourgeois state. Getting rich regardless of the cost has always been the true American Dream and when Trump speaks of Making America Great Again, I'm sure that's what his followers are hearing. How do you introduce finer thoughts regarding the sacred and the noble in a land of the bourgeoisie?

And then there's religion. For Spain and Italy going to their sacred place was simply adhering to the Catholic Church -- just as it was Orthodox Christianity for Dostoevsky. But what is the sacred standard for the U.S.A? Evangelical Christianity? Who's brand? And whichever one you pick the Catholics and Mormons and Goat knows how many other sects will scream. America hasn't yet seen a good religious war, wouldn't it be amusing if the fight against Radical Islam resulted in a new 30 Years War among Christian sects?

Next - 119. Catching up

117. The Dashwoods

Previous - 116. Abusing QCD & synesthesia

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Food dislikes

Here's the kind of thing the internet is so handy for. In "real" life I've ran into any number of people with odd (to me) food preferences -- a dislike of mushrooms is common, also of cilantro and green bell pepper -- but someone in my online group brought up foods people can't stand and the list amazes me.

We had stumbled on avocado and raisins before, many people in the group detest both. Now we're adding olives, ham, ketchup & mustard. And today we've added cherries -- at first Maraschino and then all cherries -- and marzipan!! 

Gustatory synesthesia! (Everybody downs a drink.) I shouldn't be surprised at any of this since my mother never tasted any of the items on this list -- though that puts her dietary preferences in an entirely different (not taste-based) category. But some of the items on this list I consider to be among life's greatest small pleasures: avocado, cilantro, real cherries, marzipan. And if you told me I would have to live the rest of my life without raisins or mustard I would not be happy.

My point is that these taste based differences are as striking to me as the more conventional forms of synesthesia. They are at least more comprehensible than the emotional synesthesia I wrote about last time -- someone pushing away a bowl of guacamole is puzzling but it also means there's more for me. Someone doing a good job but not being able to acknowledge that, or feel any pride in the accomplishment, is much harder for me to get my mind around. 

An excellent example of this for me was that recent Women's March in Oakland I greened. As a "good dog" (in a previous life) I thrive on pleasing whoever is in charge. For that event there was no one else around for most of the day so I had to please myself, and I can be something of a perfectionist. I can nit pick any number of aspects of my work that day (and have done so) but I can also see that I did more than could reasonably have been expected of me, and I can feel pride in my work (while still keeping in mind a short list of things I would have done differently and will try to do differently if I'm ever in that situation again.) To not be able to correctly assesses my performance would be as scary as Oliver Sacks' list of freakish neurological conditions like being unable to recognize faces, or read words, or speak, or imagine color. 

Sense and Sensibility

I'm watching the most recent mini-series version of this again. So delightful. This time, as I watch, I've been thinking of "parade." In the first of the three parts there was one instance of parade in the usual sense -- a funeral parade in this case -- but I lost track of the instances of parade in the other sense. (And yes, I have in mind Parade's End here.) We see the Dashwoods on parade first at the head of their establishment at Norland Park and then in their reduced circumstances at the cottage and at the home of their cousin, where we also see that landed family in welcoming parade. Every social visit requires a degree of parade.

This would be hard to defend, but I rather think this degree of parade is related to the way people, within living memory, would dress up to go to town -- or go downtown. Gloves and hats. Dressing for church may be the last of this sort of parade. My (Boomer) generation was probably the death of all this, and I was never a fan of it in any case, but now one has to wonder if this was also part of the path that lead to Donald Trump. 


Jane Austen's works are spiced with memorable minor characters (Sophie Thompson has nailed two of these parts), but one that I never thought of in this way was Anne Steele, until Daisy Haggard took her in hand. There should be special prizes for running away with a part like that.

I've finished my re-watch, and I would also like to praise Dan Stevens. I don't think anyone could play Edward Ferrars better than this. That penultimate scene where he has to play through the awkwardness of the Dashwoods thinking he -- rather than his brother Robert -- had recently married Lucy Steele was brilliant. 

I would even praise Mark Gatiss. John Dashwood is one of the most thankless parts, as he is so weak and it would be so easy to turn him into a joke. Fanny knows very well what she is about, but John, I think, truly thinks himself to be a an honorable man. Mark gives us a character who is shallow and conventional, but decent in his own way. He truly believes the advice he gives Elinor.

And I'm sure I've written about this elsewhere, but I do prefer this Maryanne to the one Austen wrote. For one thing she actually grows as a character over the course of the novel, as a young woman of 17 ought to do, and as the written Maryanne (to my recollection) fails to do. Elizabeth in P&P, and Emma, and Catherine in Northanger all develop as characters. Even Anne Elliot grows a bit of a backbone. But Elinor seems to be perfect from the start. We will not speak of Fanny Price. 

Next - 118. Evola & the Alt-right

116. Abusing QCD and synesthesia

Previous - 115. Crossroads

Curious

Felt a bit better today -- fever down -- and thought I could go out and get a sandwich to bring home without sounding too consumptive. (Success.) But as I was dressing to go out I thought to myself, "Last time I was this sick I ended up buying a condo." And that's when the penny dropped.

It is almost exactly 20 years from when I was sick that time -- to within a week or two. I felt worse then (didn't leave my apartment for about a week) but had no obvious symptoms like now -- cue wet cough. I still don't know what was wrong with me in 1997, but the condo had been my salvation. And then I pushed it back even farther...

The last time I had a chest cold like this must have been within a year or so of 1977, so 40 years ago. Maybe I should leave a note to myself to prepare for 2037. Though I'm not sure how. 

When life gives you phlegm...

A friend revealed an unexpected childhood -- and resulting personality disorder -- which got me thinking about how that "nuclear family" idea works better than I had expected. My family was an "ideal" nuclear family -- a hydrogen atom. Technically speaking we were Deuterium: I would say Mother was the proton and Dad was the neutron, since present fathers are more optional than mothers.

Even in the post-quantum, post-Linus Pauling world, the model of Deuterium is pretty simple, though you do have to recall that uncertainty is always a factor. But the "shell" in which the electron (me) can be found couldn't be easier to determine.

But when you start adding other siblings the picture starts to grow complex, as is the case with heavier atoms. (We're going to have to drop the family aspect of the nucleus here, unfortunately, as I was thinking about Tritium if step-parents were involved, but that doesn't really work out electrodynamically. Sad, really.)

With Pauling, electron "shells" get very odd.

The shell of each additional electron/sibling is shaped by the increased distance from the protons/parents and by interference with the other siblings. And so someone can end up with Impostor Syndrome simply from the social factors controlling the family unit.

I know that one of the reasons I adore Jane Austen is the rich family life in many of her novels. As an only child, siblings are endlessly fascinating to me. Like having a pony. And then, over time, you collect so many stories of dysfunctional sibling relationships that you need Elizabeth and Jane to hold on to. Now I see people with affectionate relationships with siblings as the true wonders of life. 

But I'm not through with Impostor Syndrome since, as everyone knows, why settle for one metaphor when you can squeeze in two. Here's the above-the-contents description from Wiki,

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a concept describing high-achieving individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud". The term was coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes.^[1] Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. Some studies suggest that impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women.^[2]

Synesthesia (Goat, I hope no one turns this into a drinking game) deals with how some of us (at least) perceive the world differently through our senses, but is this difference in perception any less real than seeing sound or tasting words? If your familial context -- or just life in general -- has shaped you in such a way that you are unable to perceive, and enjoy, your own success, then that is a most profound distortion of the world. 

And I couldn't help noting that Impostor Syndrome seems to be the opposite of Donald Trump's condition. So how many variations are there on this theme. How many people puzzle us because they suffer from a kind of emotional synesthesia that we can't comprehend, unless they tell us or someone writes a book about them?

Anyway. Something to ponder as my sinuses drain and my temperature returns to below normal.

No, I'm not done yet. The problem with the QED atomic view above is that it's still too simple to describe the complexity of family relationships. I have to suggest we go... to the QCD side. Let's say a family starts when two quarks get together. (Meaning of chroma and spin TBD.) Often the quarks, not confident in the Strong Force (new definition), conceive a gluon to increase their bond -- sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. In the later case you have a gluon shaped by both a Strong and Weak (remote or dead or unknown parent) force.

The evolving gluon can also be shaped by siblings and step-quarks. The presence of younger siblings, for instance, tends to turn the oldest into a semi-quark. Qualities and weaknesses of the quarks (again, represented by chroma and spin) effect different gluons differently based on gender (spin?) and birth order and other factors.

Sometimes the gluon grows to be a healthy quark, escapes the Strong force without rejecting the Weak force of extended family. Other times the gluon escapes too quickly, before it is fully matured, or else can never escape the Strong force at all.

I wish I could assign this to someone to flesh out. That must be the fun part of being a teacher.

Next - 117. The Dashwoods

115. Crossroads

Previous - 114. The age of Supers

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The Crossroads:

Warfare in the first half of the 20th century.

Yesterday I happened upon an account of a minor infantry engagement in WW2 that is only known to people because of a book and TV mini-series. Thinking about the account later, I realized that it is a wonderful look at how infantry fighting changed in the first half of the 20th century. But let me say right now that much of this is surmise on my part. The accounts of the engagement I've seen haven't given as much detail as I would have liked.

Late in 1944 the German and Allied armies stood on either side of the Rhine near it's mouth, where the land was mostly flat polders and bordered by dikes. The Allied advance since the Normandy breakout had run out of gas (literally in some cases) and the Germans were still trying to recover from the disaster they suffered around Falaise. This stretch of the front was quiet and thinly held on the Allied side of the river. In the particular area we are concerned with, a small road ran from near, but not on, the river back into the rear of the regiment holding the line. To be even more specific, the road ran between the areas covered by two different infantry companies. Neither company had enough men to keep eyes on the entire front, so small patrols were periodically sent out into the gap in between them. 

The Germans, noticing this weakness, decided to attack down that gap so as to penetrate the weak Allied line and create havoc in the rear. With luck, they could hit regimental headquarters before anyone could organize a counter attack. This wasn't the main assault, but intended as a diversion to tie-down Allied regiments while confusing them about where the real attack would come.

But this is 1944, not 1814 or even 1864, so there would be no general on horseback leading a daring charge. Instead, the order for the operation was given to a Waffen SS battalion commander (equivalent in rank to an American Major) who gave the job to two companies of his unit. (This is one of the places where I'm fleshing out the story. I know the companies were SS so they must have belonged to a battalion though the accounts don't mention it.) They had to quietly cross the Rhine, (probably in small boats) make their way to the Allied line, force their way through, place small blocking forces on their new flanks to keep the Allies at bay (a platoon with a few well placed MG 42 machine guns should do the trick) and then race through to do their job. 

This was not an attack that would win a war, but it had every chance of at least limited success. But that's not what happened. As so often happens in warfare, poor training and an excess of stupidity on one side, combined with good training and intelligence on the other side, to produce a surprising outcome.

The evening the Germans started crossing the river, an American patrol ran into their advance force and were mauled. They pulled their wounded back to company headquarters and reported the contact. At this point the Germans were still crossing the river and were not in position to attack. Their advance force should have been lying low and avoiding contact. But let's say the American patrol caught some of them out in the open so they had no alternative but to engage. Once the Americans were driven off, they ought to have concealed themselves -- tried to convince the Americans that two patrols had run into each other by chance, but that that was the end of the story and there was nothing more to see here. Failing that, they should have dug in, taking advantage of the high ground of the dikes and stayed quiet until the remainder of their force was assembled for the attack -- unless they were attacked.

The left side of the gap, when viewed from the Allied perspective, was held by Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division. Captain Winters, commander of Easy, immediately set out with a squad of his men (a small force just a step up from a patrol) to investigate what was happening on his right flank. When they approached the scene of the prior fight they saw one of those splendid German MGs firing down the road -- where there were no troops. Winters positioned his small unit to attack the MG position and they succeeded in taking it out but discovered there were many more Germans on the other side of a dyke (the Germans were still assembling), so Winters pulled back into a covering position and called in the remainder of the 1st platoon, plus some additional light machine guns. 

Now this is where it gets really weird. At first light, the Germans had arrived but were still forming up for the attack and thus in considerable disorder. Still, there were two companies of Waffen SS versus a reinforced platoon of paratroopers. Winters ordered his men to fix bayonets and lead a charge across hundreds of yards of flat terrain (where most all of his men were delayed by wire fences) with his machine guns providing suppressing fire. Because the Germans had no security at all, apparently, the Americans caught them in the open and slaughtered many, captured eleven, and drove the survivors back to the river.  

Winters then called in a second platoon from a neighboring company (Fox) and followed the Germans to the river where they fought an indecisive engagement, but convinced the Germans that this was not the best place for their attack. The Waffen battalion commander was probably happy to get any of his men back across the river in safety.

Easy company is best known for their textbook attack on a German artillery position behind Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion. But this engagement, known as The Crossroads, is, from my perspective, even more outstanding and characteristic of post -Somme infantry warfare. Winters did everything right. (Though the bayonet charge was a huge risk.) Most of the casualties suffered on the American side were in the initial patrol ambush and when the platoons were pulling back from the river and were caught at the crossroads by German artillery. Even then they only lost one KIA. 

The Germans, on the other hand, did almost everything wrong. On paper, this operation works every time, but that's assuming officers and men know their jobs and actually perform them. Back in 1814 or 1864 a commander of a company would only have been required to hold his position within the regiment. And if he had screwed up there would have been regimental and possibly divisional staff on hand to set him right. Winters was independently engaging enemy forces maybe six times larger than his own (though he didn't know that, and this doesn't count the rest of his company that didn't take part in the engagement.)

Here are some clips from the mini-series. Unfortunately, they simplified and altered and added some explosions for the sake of TV. They still give you some idea of what happened. I can't show them here but I'll give you the links,

The night battle

The morning charge

Candide

Chapter 18. Something Voltaire didn't know, and couldn't imagine, was that the Americas didn't have wheeled transport before the Conquest. There would have been no carriages in Eldorado. 

P.S. This assumes the people of Elderado are supposed to be Native Americans, which would seem to be true except that I've also heard that Elderado was actually based on the Pennsylvania colony.

Vertigo

p117 We finally learn our hero's name, Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, historian, of Landeck, Tyrol. Here's the Wiki entry on the actual person with this name. And that's where I found this, quote from Fallmerayer, 

For nearly eighteen aeons [Äonen], all history has been the result of the struggle between two basic elements, split apart by a divine power from the very beginning: a flexible life-process on the one side, and a formless, undeveloped stasis on the other. The symbol of the former is eternal Rome, with the entire Occident lying behind her; the symbol of the latter is Constantinople, with the ossified Orient.... That the Slavs might be one of the two world-factors, or if one prefers, the shadow of the shining image of European humanity, and therefore that the constitution of the earth might not admit philosophical reconstruction without their assent, is the great scholarly heresy of our time.^[15]

Doesn't that suggest Settembreni's position? Here's something else from Wiki "...in November 1850, the Munich Professor Johann Nepomuk von Ringseis delivered an 'explosive' lecture at a public session of the Bavarian Academy, where he denounced the arrival in Bavaria of a 'philosophical Left' [Fallmerayer], marked by liberalism and irreligiosity, that viewed all religion as a 'pathological condition....'"

Later we are told that,

He is remembered as "a co-founder of Byzantine studies, as discoverer of the divisive Greek theory, as a prophet of the world-historical opposition between Occident and Orient, and finally as a brilliant essayist."^[40]

Fallmerayer's account of the split between "Occident" and "Orient" hinged on his interpretation of the Russian Empire, which he perceived as a powerful blend of Slavic ethnic characteristics, Byzantine political philosophy, and Orthodox theology. Although he initially perceived this constellation with admiration, and viewed Russia as the potential savior of Europe from Napoleon, his view changed in the mid-1840s, perhaps as a result of his encounter with Fyodor Tyutchev, and he soon came to see Russia as the major threat to Western Europe. By the late 1840s he was convinced that Russia would conquer Constantinople and the Balkans, and perhaps further the Slavic lands of the Habsburg and Prussian Empires. In the mid-1850s he was overjoyed by the success of the European/Ottoman coalition in the Crimean War.^[56]

Alas, our hero is clearly established in the 20th rather than the 19th century. Confusion grows.

Slight delay

I would have posted this earlier but I've had a cold (or something) and decided to put it off a couple days. I'll say this for my cold, it is fast moving. The first night I had a very sore throat so I bought sorbet the next day. By evening my throat was not particularly sore. The sorbet is good though.

Next - 116. Abusing QCD & synesthesia