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The Most Influential Books in My Life

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I Read All These Books Multiple Times, Starting at Least Thirty Years Ago

I Read All These Books Multiple Times, Starting at Least Thirty Years Ago

These are not necessarily the greatest books I have ever read. They are, however, the ones that have most influenced me. Each of them, I have read multiple times, and I first read them all before 1985. I have presented them here in alphabetical order by author:

  1. Anonymous. Njals Saga. Why haven’t more Americans read this book? It tells of a time when Iceland was governed by clans, and justice was crude but effective. It’s one of two Icelandic sagas that have a museum dedicated to them. The Njals Saga museum is in Hvöllsvollur, and I have visited it twice. The other honors Egils Saga and is located in Borgarnes.
  2. Balzac, Honoré de. Old Goriot. How does a young man make his way through life? Balzac’s hero, Eugène de Rastignac, is one of the great heroes in fiction.
  3. Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. Borges has been one of my teachers, having turned me on to so many of the books, people, and places that have mattered in my life. I am re-reading it now for the fifth time.
  4. Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia. Maybe not every word that Chatwin writes is true, but even his fictions have lured me to the southern tip of Argentina twice, and soon, for the third time.
  5. Chesterton, G. K. The Man Who Was Thursday. Learn with Gabriel Syme how to see the lamppost from the light of the tree instead of vice versa. Here we are in the world of paradox.
  6. García Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. This is a book I bought at a souvenir stand at the ruins of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán. It showed me that life was magical.
  7. Highet, Gilbert. The Art of Teaching. Originally, I wanted to become a college professor. I never quite made it, but Highet made me wish I had. I first read this book while I was in high school.
  8. Orwell, George. Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Another high school read: How does one tread the fine line between genteel poverty and selling out?
  9. Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time. I am reading this now for the third time. I hope to live to read it several times more. Generally, it takes me a decade to re-read all seven novels in the series. When reading it, I am totally absorbed in the world of Marcel.
  10. Strunk, William and White, E. B. The Elements of Style. Strunk & White showed me that good writing is essentially simple and direct. Another classic from my teen years.

I could easily add more titles, but these titles keep swirling around in my head and influencing me.

 

 

The Cook

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I Do All the Cooking at Home

I Do All the Cooking at Home

At some point during the 1960s, I discovered that eating out at restaurants all the time was going to:

  1. Eat into my finances
  2. Deprive me of the fruits and vegetables I needed to survive and
  3. Make me tired of eating out all the time

I knew what good food was because I was raised on my Mom’s Hungarian home cooking, supplemented by my great grandmother Lidia’s special dishes. But I made the mistake of never learning from them, though I did help my Mom from time to time, mostly stirring the pot so the food would not burn.

My first experiments were pretty bad: They usually had too many spices (more or less randomly chosen) and relied excessively on rice and pasta as the carbohydrate base. Also I used way too much ground beef, for which I now substitute lean ground turkey.

When Martine came to live with me in the early 1990s, I also had to learn to cook to please her. This is not easy. Martine cannot eat spicy food, and there are too many ingredients that she flat-out doesn’t like. Also, as she suffers from recurring bouts of irritable bowel syndrome, I have to be able to turn on a dime and cook something especially bland at a moment’s notice. This week, for example, despite the heat and humidity, I made a pot of vegetable soup.

Tonight, I plan to cook Ree Drummond’s spaghetti with artichoke hearts and tomatoes. I like her recipes because they are well conceived, simple, and lavishly illustrated. Her cooking column is called “The Pioneer Woman.” I haven’t found a clinker yet in the lot.

Why do I do all the cooking? Well, for one thing, Martine is notably maladroit at cooking; and her mother prepared the most vile dishes I have ever eaten. (Her vegetables were greasy!) Secondly, I like to cook. It makes me feel good about myself. Every once in a while I experiment with a new recipe that I have to throw out, but essentially I have a fairly decent repertoire of healthy dishes that I can rely on to see us through.

I’ve cooked the spaghetti with artichoke hearts and tomatoes two or three times before with good results. I just have to make sure the tomatoes are chopped up fine because big pieces of tomato are one of Martine’s bête noires.

Felix Culpa

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I Profit from My Booking Error

I Profit from My Booking Error

Until a few days ago, I thought my flight to and from South America was going to set me back slightly over $2,200. That’s mostly because flights from Santiago, Chile to Los Angeles are not cheap. Poring over my ticket confirmation, I find that the $900 for my flight to Buenos Aires via São Paolo is actually a round trip flight. Instead of forking over $1,300 for a flight from Santiago, I just need a much cheaper flight (about $300) from Santiago to Buenos Aires—provided I fly back on Thanksgiving Day via TAM Airlines, again via São Paolo.

I’m not sure how this all happened, but I have verified that my TAM ticket is round trip, and that I will have almost one thousand dollars more to spend on my vacation. Of course, I will have to loll around for six hours at São Paolo’s Guarulhos International Airport, but that’s all right with me. I will have my two Kindles fully charged and can sample some tasty Brazilian chow at my leisure.

As far as missing out on some turkey on Thanksgiving, too bad. Don’t like it much anyhow.

 

“The Fishes of the Dawn”

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Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Chilean Poet

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Chilean Poet

For many years, it was thought that Pablo Neruda was poisoned by order of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte because of his association with Salvador Allende. Inasmuch as he died only twelve days after Allende, foul play was assumed. Until recently that is. when Neruda’s body was exhumed by a team of forensic scientists, who found no evidence of poison.

I thought I would celebrate this finding by giving you Margaret Sayers Peden’s translation of Neruda’s “Ode to Age”:

Ode To Age – Poem by Pablo Neruda

I don’t believe in age.
All old people
carry
in their eyes,
a child,
and children,
at times
observe us with the
eyes of wise ancients.
Shall we measure
life
in meters or kilometers
or months?
How far since you were born?
How long
must you wander
until
like all men
instead of walking on its surface
we rest below the earth?
To the man, to the woman
who utilized their
energies, goodness, strength,
anger, love, tenderness,
to those who truly
alive
flowered,
and in their sensuality matured,
let us not apply
the measure
of a time
that may be
something else, a mineral
mantle, a solar
bird, a flower,
something, maybe,
but not a measure.
Time, metal
or bird, long
petiolate flower,
stretch
through
man’s life,
shower him
with blossoms
and with
bright
water
or with hidden sun.
I proclaim you
road,
not shroud,
a pristine
ladder
with treads
of air,
a suit lovingly
renewed
through springtimes
around the world.
Now,
time, I roll you up,
I deposit you in my
bait box
and I am off to fish
with your long line
the fishes of the dawn!

It is my hope to read more of Neruda’s poetry before I visit his houses near Valparaiso, Chile.

The Man from La Boca

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He Was the Painter of the Port of Buenos Aires

He Was the Painter of the Port of Buenos Aires

Benito Quinquela Martín (1890-1977) is a painter not widely known in the art world of New York, London, or Paris. In Argentina, his work is a different story altogether. Martín was known primarily for painting port scenes around La Boca, which, for most of his life, was the port of Buenos Aires. Today, La Boca is primarily known for cheap souvenir shops and dancers who assume tango positions for pesos for the tourists. Near the tour buses at Caminito, however, sits the Escuela Pedro de Mendoza, which happens to contain the Museo de Bellas Artes Benito Quinquela Martín dedicated to his work.

Boca is not the nicest part of the port city, and it is no longer the port, which has been moved east. The polluted Riachuelo, also known as the Matanza, flows past the museum and the brightly colored buildings decorated with leftover marine paints and inspired by Quinquela Martín’s port views.

Unloading Cargo at La Boca

Unloading Cargo at La Boca

Aside from the tourist ghetto around Caminito and the nearby Boca Juniors football stadium known as the Bombonera, or candy box, Boca is a rough neighborhood from which tourists do not stray far. A century ago, however, it was the port of entry for thousands of Italian, Spanish, and other European immigrants who came to South America looking for a better life. And many of them found it. During the First World War, most soldiers on both sides were fed with canned beef from Argentina and Uruguay; and silent movies like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) starring Rudolph Valentino showed the lives of Argentinian millionaires.

Another Port Scene from Martín

Another Port Scene from Martín

Today, Benito Quinquela Martín is considered to be one of the greatest Argentinian painters of the Twentieth Century; and his work in found in museums throughout Buenos Aires.

 

Thanking the Dead

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Bon Dancers in West L.A.

Bon Dancers in West L.A.

This is not something that Christians are likely to do, but it has ben an integral part of Japanese Mahayana Buddhist practice since the Seventh Century. It is a belief that the disembodied spirits of the dead return to Earth to visit around July and August. According to the Rev. Patti Usuki of the West L.A. Hongwanji:

Obon season is a time to express our gratitude to loved ones who have passed on before us. Without them, we would not be who we are today, due to the basic tenet of interdependence. We would not be where we are and we would not be able to do the things we do to enjoy life. Just think about the number of people involved in creating each of us. If we go back just thirty generations, we can calculate that there were over two billion parents, starting with our two parents, their four parents, and so on—and that’s just the physical part.

So on different weekends during July and August, the many members of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism travel to the different Hongwanjis in Southern California and do the traditional bon dances. Represented yesterday at the West L.A. Buddhist Temple were parishioners from  Venice, Sun Valley, San Fernando Valley, Senshin (Downtown L.A.), Pasadena, and even from as far away as Ventura, Orange, and Santa Barbara counties.

The Men’s Club Prize Pork Udon Soup

The Men’s Club Prize Pork Udon Soup

Of course, dancing is not the only draw. My favorite food on offer there is the Men’s Club’s Pork Udon Soup, seasoned with spicy Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese chili powder). Another favorite is the blueberry imagawayaki, which is like a hand-held blueberry pancake with extra blueberries. Martine, as usual, went for the teriyaki chicken.

The combination of good food, colorful kimonos, and enthusiastic dancers on a pleasant summer evening made for a good time.

 

Favorite Films: His Kind of Woman (1951)

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A Film Noir That Just Happens to Be Wildly Entertaining

A Film Noir That Just Happens to Be Wildly Entertaining

Most film noir productions take themselves pretty seriously, but His Kind of Woman is an exception. Robert Mitchum (as Dan Milner) is hanging out at a Mexican resort with Jane Russell (as Lenore Brent) after having been advanced fifteen thousand dollars for some unknown reason. No one seems to know what is going on, until the word is about that mafioso Raymond Burr (as Nick Ferraro) is on his way to meet him. Ferraro has been banned from the U.S. and is tired of his Italian exile, so he plans to return to the States—as Dan Milner.

About midway through the film, Vincent Price (as Mark Cardigan) pretty much steals the show, playing an actor who likes to hunt, fish, and collect mistresses, including Jane Russell. When it comes time for the shooting, however, Price dons a cape, begins spouting Shakespeare, commandeers a Mexican police squadron, and takes on Ferraro and his goons with his hunting rifles.

His Kind of Woman was directed by John Farrow and (uncredited) Richard Fleischer. Although there was a lot of re-shooting to please executive producer Howard Hughes, the film isn’t as jagged as it might have been. It alternates between a film noir grimness and goofy satire.

I had seen he end several times, but last night was the first time I sat through the entire picture.

Tarnmoor’s First Law of the Internet

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Trash Reigns Supreme

Trash Reigns Supreme

Tarnmoor’s First Law of the Internet is very much like Gresham’s Law: Bad money drives out good, except in this case news is driven out by dross. In the end, the Internet tends to resemble that garbage dump the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. In terms of websites that purport to concentrate on informative news, I see this trash as being of five different types:

  1. Outright clickbait, usually hinting at something surprising or earth-shattering and featuring a picture of an attractive thirty or forty year old model.
  2. Articles about television series on news sites, not surprising considering that news sites frequently own production companies.
  3. References to “viral videos” usually featuring cute animals or spectacular fails.
  4. Links to videos where the video adds nothing to the story and consists of a few seconds buried within a boring talking head sequence.
  5. Articles about dumb things that wingnuts on all sides of the political spectrum say.

Places where I turn expecting to find something I can sink my teeth into, yield instead a kind of digital styrofoam containing no intellectual nourishment. Instead, one finds what I call WABAW (WAste of BAndWidth). Look what I found on CNN’s website today:

  • Odd houses come straight out of ‘Flintstones.’
  • Reason #1 not to pose for a selfie with a rattlesnake.
  • Mother duck guides her ducklings past swerving cars. (Awww!)
  • Water balloon explodes with man inside.
  • See Paula Abdul recreate ‘Opposites Attract’ video.
  • What ‘Back to the Future’ got right about 2015.
  • ‘Sharknado 3’: the tweets, the cameos, the crazy.

If you want to see even a more determined effort to send you down a brainless rathole, go to Weather.Com. My eyes glazed over when I saw “Ever put coins in dry ice?’ and ‘WATCH: He dropped a basketball of a dam and didn’t expect what happened.’ I presume that if you are reading this, you do not go hunting through multiple windows following an attractive woman who promises to show you something that would really make the IRS, TSA, Catholic Church, or your beloved Lhasa Apso furious.

Charge!

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Guess What Retro-Tech Item Cell Phones Have Popularized?

Guess What Retro-Tech Item Cell Phones Have Popularized?

This posting is inspired by an article on BBC’s website entitled “Weird Places Readers Charge Phones.” The BBC asked readers for the weirdest places they charged their cell phones. Here are some of the responses:

In South Korea I came across a phone charger powered by gym equipment! Korea is more than a little obsessed with mobile phones so it didn’t come as a big surprise when I was climbing a mountain and came across a phone charger, powered by cycling.

That actually makes sense. We all need to do more exercise. One viewer from Mold in Wales (hmmm!) wrote:

Some of the best phone reception in the Nepal Himalayas is near to Everest Base Camp. So when approaching here from less well-connected places, phones start to light up with activity. I’ve set up a solar charger on top of Kala Patthar (18,500 ft) to keep my smartphone going. On the other hand, I carry a backup dumbphone—like many locals use—and it will stay charged for a week.

Sometimes, desperate cell phone users will resort to unacceptable measures:

I once sat in the waiting area in Bristol children’s hospital with my little girl. We saw a woman go up to the fish tank and unplug it in order to plug her phone charger in! She was aghast when the receptionist told her to remove it and plug the fish tank back in.

Yup, You Guessed It!

Yup, You Guessed It!

I would think the fish were even more aghast. Finally, let’s see how an entrepreneur approaches the problem:

Perhaps the most entrepreneurial and exploitative battery charging service I have seen was in Lindela Repatriation Centre, Krugersdorp, South Africa.

Whilst waiting for 30 days to be voluntarily deported back to the UK, my 5000+ fellow deportees were given so little information by the staff that they were desperately using mobile phones to contact relatives, friends or Embassy staff.

People with phones rented their use to others whilst staff at the shop charged them for re-charging their phones.

When you have 10 sockets for about 2,000 phones, you can name your price.

 

Everything and Nothing

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Portuguese Novelist and Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)

Portuguese Novelist and Poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)

Come on, ’fess up! When was the last time you ever read any Portuguese literature?

Chances are, you probably never dipped into José Saramago, Eça de Queirós, or—greatest of all—Fernando Pessoa. The author of The Book of Disquiet, an amorphous work that is one of the masterpieces of 20th century literature, wrote under some seventy different names. Below is a sample of his poetry, which he wrote under the name of Álvaro de Campos, entitled “The Tobacco Shop.” Like all of his work, it is simultaneously about everything and nothing.

I’m nothing.
I’ll always be nothing.
I can’t want to be something.
But I have in me all the dreams of the world.

Windows of my room,
The room of one of the world’s millions nobody knows
(And if they knew me, what would they know?),
You open onto the mystery of a street continually crossed by people,
A street inaccessible to any and every thought,
Real, impossibly real, certain, unknowingly certain,
With the mystery of things beneath the stones and beings,
With death making the walls damp and the hair of men white,
With Destiny driving the wagon of everything down the road of nothing.

It is only with the fourth line of the second stanza that Pessoa mentions the tobacco shop, a prosaic place opening onto a street fronting onto the world of “stones and beings.”

Pessoa might seem to have had a weak sense of personhood, but he left behind a rich and multifarious literary reality which cries out to be mined.