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Monthly Archives: August 2021

Space Aliens

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Space Aliens at the Roswell, NM, UFO Museum

Let’s face it: Real space aliens—if they exist and they probably do—are probably nothing like this. We have gotten used to these skinny attenuated bipedal creatures who look vaguely humanoid. Life can take many possible forms, especially on planets that are significantly different from Earth.

I have just finished reading a book by Stanisław Lem called The Invincible. I have long thought that the best sci-fi comes from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland and Russia. In the West, we tend to think too much along the same lines; but novels from writers like Lem and the Strugatsky brothers give us a whiff of the alien that is not necessarily tied down to traditional forms.

My Edition of Lem’s The Invincible

For another look at what might be out there, I strongly recommend you read Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic, and see the great film that was based on it: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1982).

Sci-fi that tries to imagine the really alien can be a little frightening, but it can be great!

Chullpas

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Funerary Tower (Chullpa) on the Shores of Peru’s Lake Umayo

In the lands around Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia, the native cultures believed in building funerary towers called chullpas to house their dead. Even under Incan rule, the Aymara-speaking Colla people continued this practice.

In 2015, I visited Sillustani, which contained the most impressive collections of chullpas situated on a nearby hill. Unfortunately, one cannot always guarantee good weather on a vacation outing, and the weather at Sillustani was vile that day. Consequently, I not only took no pictures but decided not to climb the hill in the rain (and at 12,000 feet or 3,700 meters altitude). So I took none of the pictures shown on this page.

Funerary Towers at Sillustani

I paid dearly for my trip to Sillustani, which included sampling some quinoa soup at a local resident’s kitchen. The next day, I was struck with a horrible need to go to the bathroom while on a lancha plying Lake Titicaca. I must have looked green in the face as I soldiered on in search of some toilet somewhere. Finally, on Isla Taquile, I found one; though I can’t say I got much from that day’s journey other than incredible discomfort.

Some days just are like that.

The Palm Springs Air Museum

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“Mitch the Witch II” with Two Confirmed Japanese Warship Victims

The Coachella Valley means a lot more to me than giant rock concerts. There’s Mount San Jacinto brooding over the valley, the Living Desert Zoo and gardens in Palm Desert, delicious Deglet Noor dates, and, of course, the Palm Springs Air Museum.

Apparently, a lot of WW2 pilots found their way to the Coachella Valley and contributed their efforts to making the Palm Springs Air Museum one of the best in the United States. While they are still walking the earth, these are the best and most learned docents on the subject that you can find anywhere.

“Bunny”—Is She African-American?

The Museum is located on Gene Autry Trail on the east side of the Palm Springs Airport. As you see the exhibits parked outside, you can watch passenger jets take off and land just a few hundred feet away.

You can even climb up on one of the WW2 bombers and walk through it, marveling at how lightweight and flimsy it appears to be.

“King of the Cats”

I find I can spend hours wandering among the hundred or so aircraft, stores inside and out, and dreaming what it must have been like to fight two enemies on opposite sides of the globe.

The Other Borges

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A Painting by the Younger Sister of Jorge Luis Borges

I was reading a radio interview by Osvaldo Ferrari with the late Jorge Luis Borges, when the subject came up of the writer’s sister, Leonor Fanny “Norah” Borges Acevedp (1901-1998):

FERRARI: As for your relationship with painting, Borges, we mustn’t forget that you’re the brother of a painter.

BORGES: Of a great painter, I think, eh? Although I don’t know if the word ‘great’ adds anything to the word ‘painter.’ Brother of a painter, let’s say. Now, as she explores subjects like angels, gardens, angels who are musicians in gardens …

FERRARI: Like the painting of the Annunciation, for example, which has the city of Adrogué in the background, which is in your house.

BORGES: Yes, which she wanted to destroy.

FERRARI: How dreadful.

BORGES: No, it’s because she thinks that she was still very clumsy, that she couldn’t paint when she made it. Well, what I know is that she sketches the plan of each painting and then she paints it. That is, the people who’ve described it as a naive painting are completely wrong. But art critics, of course, their profession is to get things wrong, I’d say … or all critics.

Woman Playing a Guitar, Painted by Norah Borges

Before one raising the issue of the blind writer as an art critic, let me say that Borges lost his vision in the mid 1950s, so he is talking of painters from his memories of thirty or more years ago. There is also a book I have of Borges’s film criticism, which also dates from before the onset of his blindness.

Because Borges and his writings have been so influential in my life, I am deeply interested in works produced by his family. For instance, Borges’s mother, Leonor Acevedo, collaborated with her son on a number of translations from the English.

Norah Borges

The work of Norah Borges is known and exhibited in South America.

Roswell

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The UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico

Wherever your beliefs may lie on the subject, I recommend you visit the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. First of all, it is entertaining in its depiction of widespread beliefs of space alien visits. Secondly, it’s not so earnest that it doesn’t have a bit of fun with its visitors. It’s all here, both the deadpan reportage of sightings and references to sci-fi classic films.

Oh, and thirdly, the souvenir shop is not to be missed. As I write this post, I am wearing my Roswell UFO Museum T-Shirt.

Klatu Berada Nikto

Roswell is not really on the way to anywhere, unless you count Carlsbad Canyons National Park. And from there to Interstate 40 is a long and relatively featureless drive. The only other nearby tourist attractions are the town of Lincoln (of Billy the Kid fame), Fort Stanton, and Fort Sumner (where Billy the Kid is buried).

If you’re looking for a road trip to the Southwest this fall (but please, wait for the heat of summer to die down), Roswell is a fun stop and clearly worth two or three hours of your time.

Air Rage

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Flying Isn’t What It Used To Be

I remember my first passenger flight in 1959, from Cleveland to West Palm Beach via Jacksonville. It was like a special privilege. Other kids in the neighborhood expressed jealousy. It was only a prop plane, but we were to be served a special meal enroute with china and silverware.

Half a century later, I hesitate to fly any American carriers, mainly because the majority of passengers are American citizens; and I have lost my faith in my fellow Americans. I would rather take a European, Canadian, or Latin American carrier because the people on board are more likely to be better behaved.

Most of the fights that break out are related to the wearing of masks by rabid Trumpites who in their minds (such as they are) think that Covid-19 is fake news. People have to risk sickening and dying because of such asininity?

I like the idea of severe penalties for bad behavior on a flight. If I didn’t have to go through a thorough inspection at the airport, I would travel with a set of brass knuckles to help subdue violent passengers. Fortunately, the chances of needing them are minimal on Linea Aerea Nacional (LAN), Volaris, Air Canada, or Icelandair.

Unless American carriers take decisive action against passengers committing air rage, they will not get my business.

Vikings

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Vikings: They Did a Lot More Than Loot and Pillage

They were the bad boys of early Medieval Europe. From the pulpits of all of Europe and even farther came the prayer “A furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine”—“From the fury of the Norsemen, O Lord deliver us.” Sailing out of Scandinavia, they occupied large parts of Britain, Ireland, France (surely you’ve heard of Normandy), Ukraine, Russia, and Italy. They formed an elite regiment in Constantinople, where they were called the Varangian Guard.

They just happened to be the first Europeans to set foot in the Americas some half a millennium before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. They had a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, which they abandoned only after constant warfare with the Skrælings (Indians).

We call them Vikings, but for them the word was a verb, not a noun. Most of the dread Norsemen raiders were farmers who would “go viking” when their short growing season was over. They were, in effect, part time terrorists.

Also, they just happened to create a great literature in the sagas, particularly those created in Iceland in the 13th century. They included such works as:

  • Njúls Saga,, the greatest of them all, about revenge that gets out of hand
  • Egils Saga, about the bard Egil Skallagrímsson
  • Laxdæla Saga, with its female heroine Guðrun
  • Eyrbiggja Saga, with its berserkers (yes, they actually existed)
  • Grettirs Saga, about a famous outlaw warrior

These were probably the best works of literature to come out of Europe in the period in which they were written. They are all available in excellent translations from Penguin Books.

Incidentally, as a French woman of Norman heritage, my Martine is herself a Viking.

Too Many Freedoms

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Maybe Wee Need to Stop Desiring “Freedoms” That Were Never Guaranteed to Us

Look what happened to our Second Amendment. Somehow, the original text—“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”—became in the minds of our dimmest and most criminally inclined citizens an invitation to accumulate military grade weapons for non-militia use.

As school children, we all heard that we didn’t have the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Now I think almost half the population would disagree with this.

The outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic has created a whole slew of crypto-freedoms, such as the freedom to refuse Covid-19 vaccination or to wear a mask to protect oneself and others from the virus.

I have just finished reading a collection of Franz Kafka’s shorter works that were published during his lifetime. In one of the stories, entitled “A Report to an Academy,” we find this very germane discussion in a speech given by a talking ape:

I deliberately do not use the word “freedom.” I do not mean the spacious feeling of freedom on all sides. As an ape, perhaps, I knew that, and I have met men who yearn for it. But for my part I desired such freedom neither then nor now. In passing, may I say that all too often men are betrayed by the word freedom. And as freedom is counted among the most sublime feelings, so the corresponding disillusionment can be also sublime.

Take a look at the above picture of the January 6 insurrection by Trump’s followers at the Capitol in Washington. This insurrection was conducted by people who have decided to take a lie (that Trump won the 2020 election) and make it into a cause for revolt. Repeating a lie at the top of one’s voice, even when accompanied by violence, is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Such freedoms I can do without!

A Different Tiger

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A Somewhat Less Cosmic Tiger Than the One Created by Borges

Jorge Luis Borges wrote a number of spectacular poems based on tigers he had viewed at the Buenos Aires Zoo. Leave it to his friend, poet Silvina Ocampo, to provide an altogether different picture. Appropriately, the title is:

 
A Tiger Speaks

 

I who move like water
sinuously
like water I know
shameful secrets.
I heard that there are dog cemeteries,
with earnest inscriptions
commemorating human friendship,
and that there are horses so stupid
they kneel before their masters,
oxen who are slaves to farmworkers,
cats who are ornaments for ladies,
like a hat or a fan,
bears who dance to the sound of a tambourine
from a man or a dwarf woman,
monkeys who flatter their owners,
elephants whom the public degrades,
abject seals who gargle
to entertain the children,
cows who let themselves be dragged along, mistreated,
who give their milk to anybody,
trained sheep
who donate their wool
to make clothing or mattresses,
snakes who caress
the head and neck of madmen.

We never managed to agree
about man’s true nature,
some fools think
perhaps in gratitude
for those who deified us
in other times
that man is a god,
but I and certain of my friends and enemies
think that he is edible.
The edible man
is always shy and trembling,
without claws and hair or with very little hair;
the man-god distributes food
with his hands, so I’ve been told,
he has a whip in his tongue and in his eyes.
In olden days, when he took up his position in the arena,
or in the desert, he wore a halo
or carried a magic wand,
he had a long mane
like a lion’s, which tangles in the teeth.
All this disturbs me:
sometimes I dream
of a rug whose coat
resembles mine, and I cry
stretched out on my own skin.
It’s strange. Inconceivable.
But there are stranger things:
Don't birds exist
who pass the time singing,
ridiculous doves, and an infinite series of fish
and beetles I’m unaware of
but which bother me?
Isn't there a poet who thinks about me constantly,
who believes that in my skin are signs revealing
man’s destiny drawn by God
in a poem?

Serendipity: On the Tram

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An Old-Style Tram in Prague

The following is one of Franz Kafka’s brief stories in his volume entitled Meditation, shown below in its entirety. You will find it in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (New York: Schocken Books, 1948). What an amazing description of a young woman of his day!

I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might rightly advance in any direction I have not even any defense to offer for standing on this platform, holding on to this strap, letting myself be carried along by this tram, nor for the people who give way to the tram or walk quietly along or stand gazing into shop windows. Nobody asks me to put up a defense, indeed, but that is irrelevant.

The tram approaches a stopping place and a girl takes up her position near the step, ready to alight. She is as distinct to me as if I had run my hands over her. She is dressed in black, the pleats of her skirt hang almost still, her blouse is tight and has a collar of white fine-meshed lace, her left hand is braced flat against the side of the tram, the umbrella in her right hand rests on the second top step. Her face is brown, her nose, slightly pinched at the sides, has a broad round tip. She has a lot of brown hair and stray little tendrils on the right temple. Her small ear is close-set, but since I am near her I can see the whole ridge of the whorl of her right ear and the shadow at the root of it.

At that point I asked myself: How is it that she is not amazed at herself, that she keeps her lips closed and makes no such remark?