Tao Yuanming (365-427) is one of the great poets of China. I have been reading a translation of his poems by Bill Porter (under his pseudonym Red Pine) and came across this unnamed poem. It talks about the hardships of travel in China around the year 400 AD. I, who yearn to have the money to allow me to travel and find myself stuck in Southern California, am in a slightly different situation.
People sigh about the hardships of travel I’m just learning about them now about the size of mountains and rivers and the unexpected dangers of both about crashing waves that echo across the sky and relentless winds that never cease the more I travel the more I long for home why am I stuck where I am I’ve been thinking about how much I love my garden and why haven’t I said goodbye to the world how long will my good years last and why did I ever question my heart
A Whole New Level of Communication Between Motorists
In the State of California, there are three reasons for using the hazrd lights on your automobile. The following is from the California Vehicle Code § 25251 (2025):
(2) When disabled or parked off the roadway but within 10 feet of the roadway, or when approaching, stopped at, or departing from, a railroad grade crossing, turn signal lamps may be flashed as warning lights if the front turn signal lamps at each side are being flashed simultaneously and the rear turn signal lamps at each side are being flashed simultaneously.
(3) To warn other motorists of accidents or hazards on a roadway, turn signal lamps may be flashed as warning lights while the vehicle is approaching, overtaking, or passing the accident or hazard on the roadway if the front turn signal lamps at each side are being flashed simultaneously and the rear turn signal lamps at each side are being flashed simultaneously.
(5) To warn other motorists of a funeral procession, turn signal lamps may be flashed as warning lights on all vehicles actually engaged in a funeral procession, if the front turn signal lamps at each side are being flashed simultaneously and the rear turn signal lamps at each side are being flashed simultaneously.
Drivers in the state have, however, adopted other reasons for using the emergency flashers. They can be interpreted as follows:
“I am a timid soul and not at all a sophisticated driver. Please do not kill me.”
“I am not at all sure what I am doing, so please cut me some slack until such time as I make up my mind.”
“The rain or snow or fog is cutting down on my visibility, so I’m just going to be super conservative until we’re out of the soup.”
There are others, but these are the most common interpretations that I’ve been able to divine.
When I was in the graduate film program at UCLA around 1970, I served as the second chairman of the Film Screening Cooperative (FSC). I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was actually a seminal film society. We invited director Budd Boetticher to screen and talk on the subject of his film Arruza about Mexican bullfighter Carlos Arruza. We also had some wild programs, most notably a quintuple feature of Edgar G. Ulmer films.
Among the voting members of the Film Screening Cooperative were:
Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband-wife team who wrote American Graffiti
Thom Andersen, a filmmaker, critic, and film teacher who served as the first chairman of the FSC
Steve Manes from USC, a screenwriter (Mother, Jugs & Speed), author, and magazine columnist
Alain Silver and James Ursini, who collaborated on numerous books on film, particularly Film Noir
Charley Lippincott of USC, who was closely associated with George Lucas
The films were screened at the luxurious theater connected to UCLA’s Melnitz Hall.
It was at Melnitz that I was badly spooked on February 9, 1971, the day of the Sylmar earthquake that was ranked at 6.5 on the Richter scale and cause extensive damage and fatalities across Southern California. That evening, I attended a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936) at Melnitz. Just when Hitch showed an anarchist sabotaging the electrical system of London, we all felt an aftershock; and all the lights went out.
The Reality of Internet Friendships Depends on How Old You Are
I have posted thousands of blogs on the Internet over the last eighteen years, yet I have no close Internet friendships. Is this a problem? For me it is not, as I take friendship very seriously. At my advanced age, I do not believe that someone who has never met me reads what I write and sees in me a real friend.
Every once in a while, I get a message from a stranger, usually a female, asking to chat with me. “About what?” I think. My posted blogs are as far as I will commit myself in print. I have no wish to start a clandestine relationship with someone who is possibly trying to mess with me. The relationships that are important to me are those with Martine, my brother, and my in-person friends, usually people I have known for a long time.
Younger people tend to be more active in seeking out Internet friends. I can understand that: They are more likely to measure their happiness by the number of mutually gratifying contacts they have made. I, on the other hand, am not interested in answering questions about how I feel. In my blogs, I make no secret of how I feel. Why would I need to carry on conversations on the side, so to speak?
If you read my blogs regularly, you know that I have been affected by the summer heat wave that seems only now to be releasing its grip. When Martine and I have gone through rough patches in our relationship, I have written about them and how terrible they made me feel. For instance, Martine left me for several days in 2017. Here is what I wrote when she returned. How would that go over in an e-mail format?
On several occasions, women have messaged me to converse with them. Don’t they realize that I am most frank in my blog posts? I don’t really want to meet up with them. They don’t really have any idea who I am, and they very likely have not read many my my blogs. They could go all the way back to 2012 on WordPress and see how I have felt on an almost daily basis over the last fourteen years.
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