Two Girls Reading

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Girls Reading, c. 1890-1891, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Frances and Armand Hammer Purchase Fund, photo © Museum Associates/

There are two reasons why I am not particularly fond of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Years ago, I signed up as a member. The museum cashed my membership check but then proceeded to pretend that I had never joined. Secondly, I am not enamored of most modern art; and I think the museum has extensive dubious holdings in that area.

When I did go to visit LACMA, I fell in love with a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir entitled “Two Girls Reading.” I have always thought of it as one of the must successful paintings of the whole French Impressionism movement

Many a time, I would stand for upwards of a half hour admiring the painting. I have always loved Renoir and have fond memories of visiting a major Renoir exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston over forty years ago.

The other section of LACMA that I liked were the ancient Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese religious art.

Since the museum has gone on a major development kick with new buildings and prohibitive admission fees, I have not seen fit to go back and visit. I liked the old buildings better than the new ones and feel that the people in charge are empire building.

The Poetry Project

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Inspired by reading Red Pine’s translations of Chinese poetry, I have decided to give it a try myself. By posting this intention in my blog, I am determined to shame myself into giving it a try. What I publish here will probably be short and blank or free verse. This week, I have medical and physical therapy appointments to eat up my timer, but I will be freer next week. Probably the end of next week.

And, no, I will not be using a fountain pen.

Angkor Wat

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Since my lack of funds has kept me from traveling to places that excite my interest, such as Southeast Asia, I must resort to what is called “armchair travel.” While I was growing up in Cleveland, I had this incredible desire to travel. Unfortunately, our travel destinations were Detroit, Passaic NJ, Schoenbrunn Village OH, and (once) Lake Worth FL. It was not until 1975 when I broke free and went to Yucatán to visit Maya ruins.

On Friday, I got together with several friends for lunch at a local Indonesian restaurant, Simpang Asia, in the Palms neighborhood, where I had a delicious Nasi Goreng.

Each Thursday, when I visit the Central Library downtown, I wait for the return of the Lonely Planet guide to Indonesia so that I can check it out for a few weeks. I remember reading Joseph Conrad’s Almayers Folly and The Outcast of the Islands several times.

So I find myself endlessly preparing for journeys which I may never take. But then, it makes life more interesting by adding to my store of knowledge.

“Dust in the Wind”

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Page from Ts’ao Chih’s “Worlds of Dust and Jade”

This summer, I discovered Chinese poetry, particularly as translated by the excellent Red Pine, alias Bill Porter. The poet Ts’ao Chih had his problems dealing with the Chinese court in Loyang and wrote a magnificent poem called “Dew on the Leek.” The following is Red Pine’s translation of a section from that poem, as quoted in his Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets of the Past:

From “Dew on the Leek”

There’s no end to Heaven and Earth
light and shade take turns
people live but awhile
suddenly we’re dust in the wind
I hoped to perform meritorious deeds
to devote myself to my lord
to assist my king with my talents
with an open and unbiased heart
swimming things honor dragons of the deep
running things honor a unicorn
if creatures can recognize virtue
why not the gentlemen at court
in the works compiled by Confucius
the royal way is abundantly clear
I offer this modest brush of mine
to promote sweetness and style

As I typed this poem, I suddenly realized that I was talking about my own working life, in which I deeply felt I was not sufficiently appreciated. At least I didn’t have to be sent into exile on a hostile frontier.

Southeast Asia

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Last year, I got my hands on a copy of a recent Lonely Planet guide to Thailand. Every morning during breakfast, I read about that fascinating country. Of late, during my trips to the Central Library downtown, I have also borrowed guides to Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Sri Lanka, and Laos. Tomorrow, I plan to see if they have any guides available to Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. I am particularly interested in Indonesia.

If I had the money, I think I would love to fly to Singapore, take the train through Malaysia, stopping in Penang, and continue on to Bangkok, Ayuthaya, and Chiang Mai. I rather doubt I could get Martine interested in such a trip, but there is a possibility that she would accept Singapore as a destination.

It might be in the tropics, but it’s small, rich, and largely air-conditioned. And there are numerous museums, a world-class zoo and botanical garden, and a fascinating mixture of cultures and cuisines—particularly Malayan, Straits Chinese (Peranakan), South Chinese, and Indian.

Life

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Charlotte Brontë as Painted by Her Brother Branwell

I am currently reading (and enjoying) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. I thought I would present a poem by Anne’s sister Charlotte (1816-1855), author of Jane Eyre, Villette, and Shirley.

Life

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life’s sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly!
What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O’er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!

Although Emily was probably the best poet in the family, I’ve always admired Charlotte.

Physical Therapy IV

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Today, more than three months after I broke my collarbone, I began my fourth round of physical therapy. The first time was when I had hip replacement surgery in 2000. Then I broke my right shoulder in Argentina in 2006 and my left shoulder in front of my apartment in 2016. And now it is for the latest fracture (right distal clavicle) in 2026.

The reason for the delay is that my orthopedist felt that the bone should be healed before I started putting pressure on the joint. So I made an appointment for mid-September at Athletic Physical Therapy in West Los Angeles.

I am a great believer in physical therapy. When I was a high school student in Cleveland, in volunteered in the physical therapy department of Highland View Hospital, where my mother worked as an occupational therapy assistant. My boss was the late Beth Fowles, who was probably the best boss I ever had in any of my jobs. I wasn’t involved directly in patient care, as I was not a certified therapist, but I helped inventory the equipment and do any odd jobs that needed to be done.

After I had my hip replacement surgery, I went through my first round of physical therapy. When I was finished, I walked without a limp. My landlord had the same surgery, with the same orthopedic surgeon, a year or two later. He decided that doing exercises post surgery was a waste of time. The result: He not only still limped, but fell down frequently.

After the exercises today, I feel a slight tremor at times in my right arm. That’s okay. It shows that something is beginning to happen. I know that within a few weeks, I will be able to wash under my left armpit, hitch my pants up behind my back, and tie my right shoelace without pain.

The New Old West

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Novelist James Lee Burke

How is it that a good Catholic boy from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast became one of the best novelists in America? I have just finished reading his Rain Gods (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009) and consider it one of the best books I have read this year. I have always loved his Dave Robicheaux mysteries set in Louisiana Creole country, but his novels about the Hackberry family in Texas are several notches above them in quality. (See the quote from the novel in yesterday’s blog.)

The Old West ain’t what it used to be. There isn’t any more “Shall We Gather at the River?” or “My Darling Clementine” or pioneers on the trail. Something has happened to make the American Southwest a darker place. First and foremost, since the end of World War 2, it is the route of choice for heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and other drugs to enter the United States. A corollary: Several million people also crossed the border from the south without going through immigration.

There is also the consciousness that we stole a large part of Northern Mexico in the 1840s under the presidency of James K. Polk. We followed up by a concerted program of genocide against the Indians in the succeeding decades and are now following that up by official intimidation and deportation of peoples who have flowed across the border, many of them decades ago. Let’s face it, our history in the desert lands of the Southwest is no less than villainous.

I was first conscious of the New Old West when I viewed the rough cut of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch at Warner Brothers Studio in 1969. Then I read Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (New York:Random House, 1985) and saw the good guys and the bad guys in an entirely harsher light. Then I read James Lee Burke’s Feast Day of Fools in 2015 during a Mexican holiday—which, incidentally, was also set in present-day Texas with the same hero, Sheriff Hackberry Holland.

Smoke and Mist

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I am three quarters of the way through James Lee Burke’s Rain Gods (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009). It is one of the author’s Hackberry Holland novels set in Southwest Texas. I am also beginning to think that its author has exceeded the limits of the genre and approached the level of literature. The following quote is what goes through the mind of a strange mass murderer who calls himself the Preacher as he sits cradling a Thompson submachine gun on his lap.

He did not know the hour and never wore jewelry or a watch when he worked. He did not measure the passage of time in terms of minutes or hours but in terms of events. There were no vehicles on the county road. There was no sign of activity inside the house he was about to invade. There were no insomniacs or early risers turning on lights in the neighborhood. There was a fire burning in the grass, and horses were nickering in the darkness, the smoke providing a plausible explanation for their sense of alarm. The sky was booming with thunderous explosions; not those of dry lightning but the kind that promised serious rain, perhaps even the type of monsoon that gave back life to a desert. In spite of the acrid tinge of smoke inside the mist, the night was as lovely and normal as one could expect during the late summer in Southwest Texas.

Preacher stuffed his trousers inside the tops of his boots and up-ended his Thompson in one hand, the other gripping his cane, then began walking through a thicket toward the ranch house in the distance, his face as impervious as molded plastic to both the brambles and the rain.

“Farewell to My Soldier Friend”

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As I grow older, I become more and more enamored of ancient Chinese poetry. One of the all-time greats was Tu Fu, also known as Du Fu, who was born in AD 712 and died in 770. This poem is called “Farewell to My Soldier Friend.” The translation is by Chao Tze-chiang.

Farewell to My Soldier Friend

The Jo River flows to the land’s end;
The Yang Pass looms on the horizon.
Now you will cross the sand-bar;
There smoke didn’t rise for months.
To show your valor, take no care for life;
To be a marquis, do not count the years.
In winter, keep your horse from being lost,
Or snow will bury his broidered saddle.