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Two Role Models

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General Winfield Scott (1786-1866)

General Winfield Scott (1786-1866)

While he was a cadet a West Point, Ulysses S. Grant admired the spit and polish of General Winfield Scott, under whom he was to fight in the Mexican War that followed. For a while, Grant emulated him, but changed his mind when the local rubes would make fun of him for looking like a toy soldier.

Then, when the Mexican War began with Grant as a brevet lieutenant, he saw an entirely different kind of general. According to Bruce Catton in his book U.S. Grant and the American Military Tradition:

[Zachary] Taylor was a natural. A professional soldier but not a West Pointer, he had fought in the War of 1812 and subsequently in many a campaign against the Indians. He had an ostentatious and wholly sincere dislike for military formality. By custom, he wore blue jeans, a long linen duster and a floppy straw hat, and he would lounge around headquarters like a seedy backwoods farmer. On the parade ground, when he sat on his horse to review troops or to watch drill or maneuvers, he was as likely as not to sit sidesaddle, chewing tobacco and behaving like a man who casually watches the field hands harvest a crop.

General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)

General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)

Both Scott and Taylor wir first-rate generals. When Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861, Winfield Scott was in charge of the Federal Army, but he was too ridden with dropsy and gout—not to mention obesity—to be able to mount a horse, so he offered his command to Robert E. Lee. Of course, when Virginia seceded from the Union, Lee went over to the Rebs, and Irvin McDowell got the nod to head the Army of the Potomac.

Interestingly, Winfield Scott’s master plan for starving the Confederacy into submission was the so-called “Anaconda Plan,” which called for a naval blockade and the capture of the Mississippi. He may have been called “Old Fuss and Feathers” toward the end of his life, but Scott knew what he was doing; and Grant copied his Western strategy from him.

Grant had two excellent role models, which he needed, because the array of timid military ignoramuses who headed the Army of the Potomac before him did not have much to offer their successors other than a long string of defeats.

The Joys of Friendship

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Mona and Wilder

Mona and Wilder

This evening, I got together with old friend Mona, with whom I used to work more than ten years ago. At the time, her little son Wilder was still an infant. No more, it seems. (It must be those Wheaties.)

Although my friends and I are all growing older, it is good to see their children thriving.

Because I lack a pituitary gland, I could never have children of my own. (And no, I was never very positive in my replies to people who said I could “just adopt,” as if all I had to do was put in a deposit at the neighborhood baby store.) So I take particular pleasure in seeing the children of my friends.

Martine was unable to join us, because her back was hurting her; so she was lying flat on her back wearing a brace when I returned from the Marina after seeing Mona.

 

Lobster Town

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Lobster Restaurant in Höfn

Lobster Restaurant in Höfn

They’re not lobsters as we think of them in the United States or Canada, but the langoustine or Nephrops norvegicus (Norwegian Lobster) of Iceland is every bit as good. The Maine Lobster is a giant, but the langoustine fits the same great flavor into a smaller package.

The lobster capital of Iceland is the town of Höfn, which is pronounced very much like a hiccup. Let’s take it slowly: HOEP, with the oe sounding like the oe in French oeil, “eye.” And where did that “p” sound come from? It seems that, in Icelandic, certain diphthongs change the pronunciation of the first consonant. Just like the name of Iceland’s International Airport. It looks as if it should be pronounced KEFF-lah-vick, but it’s actually KEP-lah-vick or KEB-lah-vick, with the “f” sounded halfway between a “p” and a “b.” And if that confuses you, don’t bother going to Hafnarfjörður, or the elves will do evil things to your vocal chords.

Getting back to lobster, Höfn is a relatively recent town that owes its growth to its location midway between East Iceland and the towns of the Southwest, including Reykjavík and Selfoss. In addition, it has one of the better harbors in the Southeast, if a little treacherous because of shifting shoals. But it is spectacular to wake up in the shadow of Europe’s biggest glacier, Vatnajökull.

Also, for some reason, the langoustines are especially plentiful and tasty around Höfn. If you visit the place, as you should when coming to Iceland, be sure to try the langoustines. They are especially good at the Humarhöfnin Restaurant pictured above. And please don’t ask me to pronounce it.

Favorite Films: Gettysburg (1993)

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Probably the Greatest Ever Movie Made for Television

Probably the Greatest Ever Movie Made for Television

Since reading the second volume of Shelby Foote’s magnificent The Civil War: A Narrative, I have decided to read some more histories during the heat of the summer. But first, I thought it was a good time to see the Turner movie of Gettysburg directed by Ronald F. Maxwell.

The film is a real labor of love, with excellent performances by Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee (he was too short for the role, but was most convincing), Tom Berenger as General James Longstreet, Sam Elliott as General John Buford, and Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. What is so remarkable is that so many of the minor roles were acted with so much passion that they stick in the mind even after twenty years. I am thinking particularly of Richard Jordan as General “Lo” Armistead; Patrick Gorman as General John Bell Hood; and Brian Mallon as General Winfield Scott Hancock.

The use of Civil War re-enactors on both sides made a big difference. This was literally a cast of thousands—thousands of enthusiastic volunteers who had their own uniforms and were accoutered with all the authentic accessories. The only disadvantage to using re-enactors is that so many of them are stout and in late middle age, but one can overlook that.

Also significant was that the script was based on Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels, which focussed on several key parts of the battle, namely the charge on Little Round Top and Pickett’s suicidal charge on the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. There were other actions that never quite make it to the forefront in histories, not to speak of this movie: I am thinking of Ewell’s assaults on Cemetery Hill (not to be confused with the Ridge) and Culp’s Hill. Without that focus, the battle, like many Civil War battles, tends to be too diffuse. (The classic example of a diffuse battle was Chickamauga fought near Chattanooga later that year.)

As good as Gettysburg the movie is, the same director tried to make a prequel ten years later: Gods and Generals (2003) was a rather flaccid failure. Jeff Daniels plays the same role, but he had gained quite a few pounds while he was at Chancellorsville a scant few months earlier.

 

Decussation and the Mind of God

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A Quincunctial Lattice

A Quincunctial Lattice

Back in January, I printed a quote from Sir Thomas Browne’s Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or. A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk (1658). A reader named Kevin Faulkner took me to task for essentially taking the easy way out and not coming to terms with the work of the 17th century scientist, divine, and mystic. He recommended that I read the companion piece Browne published in the same year, entitled The Garden of Cyrus, or, the Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered with Sundry Observations.

This week, I finally got around to reading The Garden of Cyrus. When confronting such a powerful mind as Browne’s, with his phenomenal erudition, recall, and powers of observation, I must confess to feeling unworthy. Never before has prose risen to such poetic heights, with a level of difficulty that approaches Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. The following comes early in the first chapter:

Wherein the decussis is made within a longilaterall square, with opposite angles, acute and obtuse at the intersection; and so upon progression making a Rhombus or lozenge configuration, which seemeth very agreeable unto the originall figure; Answerable whereunto we observe the decussated characters in many consulary Coynes, even even those of Constantine and his Sons, which pretend their character in the Sky; the crucigerous Ensigne carried this figure, not transversely or rectangularly intersected, but in a decussation, after the form of an Andrean or Burgundian cross, which answereth this description.

Now this is in no wise to be considered as light reading. Yet there is a Greco-Roman sense of majesty in which Browne takes the simple shape illustrated above, inspired by the tree planting pattern of Cyrus in ancient Persia, as one of the basic patterns in nature and art. And ultimately in the mind of God.

Browne goes far beyond the lattice-work in nature and botany to a mystical consideration of the shape and of the number five, which it suggests in the Quincunx pattern, with a tree in the center and one at each of the four points in a lozenge-shape surrounding the central tree. As Browne says in his conclusion in Chapter Five (the last chapter, appropriately): “All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of Heaven.”

Sir Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne is not a writer one can read once over lightly. Each of his powerful essays, including his Religio Medici, begs to be accepted as a vade mecum to which the reader will return again and again.

And what does the reader gain? Actually, the erudition and complex latinate vocabulary by itself is not the reason for a further acquaintance: Rather, it is the way in which the towering speculations of the author are in the humble service of his God. For Browne, there is no conflict between science and Christianity. They complement each other at every turn.

Somehow, I feel as if my dreams tonight will be of rhombuses and quincunxes extending into the heavens, from the smallest parts of creation even unto the stars.

If you are even moderately interested in a difficult and rewarding author, I suggest you read his essays, and also look of Kevin Faulkner’s excellent website entitled The Aquarium of Vulcan, which deals rather more substantially with Browne than I am able to at this time.

“I Killed Seven With One Blow”

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What a Valiant Little Tailor!

What a Valiant Little Tailor!

The tale comes from the Brothers Grimm: It is the story of a little tailor who kills seven flies with one blow of his swatter. Then, to make sure the world knows what a valiant little tailor he was, he makes inscribes the line “I killed seven with one blow” on his belt and goes out into the world to—what else?—make his fortune. Of course, everyone misunderstands the saying on the belt and thinks the tailor killed seven men with one blow.

I felt much the same way when I read an interview with Gore Vidal in The Paris Review in which he states “But then I’m typically American. We weren’t brought up with theater like the English or the Germans. On the other hand, I saw every movie I could in my youth. I once saw four movies in one day when I was fourteen. That was the happiest day of my life.”

What, only four? I think I have had at least ten days in my time when I have seen five or even six movies in one day. I remember two days at the University of Southern California (USC) when I saw five Westerns directed by Budd Boetticher and another when I saw not only five films by John Ford, but John Ford himself showed up. I don’t count the day I saw five films directed by Hitchcock—but only because the 35mm nitrate print of Rope (1948) exploded into flames in the projection booth.

Then there were all the days I spent at the Cinecon show in Hollywood watching early silent and sound films, one after the other, with breaks only for lunch and dinner.

For the first time in nearly a decade, I don’t think I’ll be attending the Cinecon show this time, for reasons I hinted at in a post I wrote a year ago. Of course, I could still change my mind; and Martine is interested in attending at least one day of the screenings. We’ll see.

You’ll Get There Strætoway

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The Central Bus Terminal at Hlemmur

The Central Bus Terminal at Hlemmur

I’ve always thought that one of the most fun things about visiting a foreign country is using the local bus system, especially when it’s so well organized (as it usually is in Europe). It’s an altogether different proposition in Latin America and Asia, where it’s not easy to find out beforehand where a particular bus goes and how often.

Reykjavík’s Stræto (pronounced STRY-toe), on the other hand, is pretty easy to use. Their yellow buses go all over the capital, and schedules are readily available on the Internet—in English. There are a number of regional terminals, such as Mjódd, from which the Stræto long-distance buses depart for the south and west of Iceland. These are usually a better deal than using the Reykjavík Excursions buses with their preponderance of backpackers. Then there is Háholt in Mosfellsbær and Fjörður in Hafnarfjörður in the southern part of the “metroplex.” (The quotes are there because Reykjavík has only about 150,000 residents.)

Stræto Buses at Hlemmur

Stræto Buses at Hlemmur

The bus fare for Stræto local buses is over $3.00, but there are several ways one can save. For more tourists, I recommend getting the Reykjavík Welcome Card, which allows you unlimited free bus travel for 1, 2, or 3 days. Also included is free admission to museums and swimming pools in the area. One could also buy panes of bus tickets. Note that long-distance services charge additional tickets, and these can either be purchased in advance at bus terminals or via credit card from the driver.

One interesting feature of the yellow Stræto buses is a display of what the next stop is, together with the name pronounced in proper Icelandic. It’s a great way to learn how to pronounce what is a real tongue-twister of a language.

 

The Story of Will Rogers

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Lobby Card from the Film The Story of Will Rogers

Lobby Card from the Film The Story of Will Rogers (1952)

It has become a tradition for Martine and me to attend the annual outdoor screening each August to mark the anniversary of the star’s death in a 1935 Alaska airplane accident. This year, it was held last Friday. The event is co-sponsored by the Will Rogers Ranch Foundation, to which we belong, and the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation. This year, instead of screening a film starring Will Rogers, we got a film about Will, starring Will’s son, Will Jr., who is a dead-ringer for his father.

The Story of Will Rogers is an A-list film starring not only Will Jr., but Jane Wyman as Betty Rogers and a great cast of supporting actors, including James Gleason, Slim Pickens, Noah Beery Jr, and Mary Wickes.

As usual, the film was screened outdoors as soon as the sky darkened (around 8 pm). The audience sat around on either blankets or (like us) chairs that we brought from home with us.

I have always thought that Will Rogers was, in many ways, the ideal American. Not only did he have Cherokee blood from both his parents, but his sense of humor was completely non-partisan. Everyone got gored—and fairly, too!

Just to leave you with one of his thoughts: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

Nothing Is Infinite, Except Stupidity

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Fumarole Near Thingvellir

Fumarole Near Thingvellir

Some time ago, I heard that Iceland was looking for some way to store electricity for transshipment to other countries that were shortchanged of the fuels required to run their turbines. It appeared that, with all their volcanoes, the little island nation was sitting on an infinite source of energy. After all, one just had to punch a hole in the ground, and steam would come pouring out.

But the actual situation is more complicated than that. For one thing, there is a relatively new kind of pollution that occurs when you harness the seemingly infinite energies of molten lava under the earth. For one thing, you get Hydrogen Sulphide pollution, which is already so bad in Reykjavík that it adversely affects sound recording equipment. The geothermal power plant at Hellisheiði is some 30 km east of the capital—contrary to the prevailing westerly wind. Yet H2S precipitates on copper and silver lead to a shortening of the equipment’s life. This could put a serious crimp in Iceland’s attempt to become a rock and roll superpower.

Then there is the matter of polluted effluent lagoons for the steam that has cooled. These pool are loaded with minerals, the concentration of which has not yet been sufficiently studied. The tourist area south of Hellisheiði, Hveragerði, is complaining that pollutants are leaching into their soil and water supply.

The Geothermal Power Plant at Hellisheiði

The Geothermal Power Plant at Hellisheiði

When Iceland lurched into its own economic recession in 2008, the solution was to build even more geothermal plants, which could generate power to run gigantic aluminum smelters—one of the most energy-intensive industrial processes known to man. The plan was to put up a cluster of power plants just to power the giant smelter at Helguvík, just south of the capital on the way to the airport. But then it was found that Hellisheiði produced insufficient power to run the smelter, and that the additional power plants envisioned by the government were running into strong opposition from the ecology-minded citizens.

Not only that, but the Hellisheiði plant was in danger of being tapped out.

 

From the Confederate Point of View

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Historian Shelby Foote (1916-2005)

Historian Shelby Foote (1916-2005)

If you have ever seen the multipart Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War first broadcast by PBS in September 1990, you will undoubtedly remember Shelby Foote (above), who is famous for his trilogy The Civil War: A Narrative. For today, I decided to post my review of the second volume of his trilogy, covering the pivotal year of 1863.

Ever since I first came across the works of Bruce Catton in my teens, I have been an aficionado of the American Civil War. So much concentrated slaughter among peoples who resembled one another so much! Also, so many lessons to be learned about the arts of leadership, and what happens when they are lacking—as in all but the last generals in charge of the Army of the Potomac!

This is the second volume of three of historian Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative. Nestled away in the “Bibliographical Note” section at the end is this revealing quote:

As for method, it may explain much for me to state that my favorite historian is Tacitus, who dealt mainly with high-placed scoundrels, but that the finest compliment I ever heard paid a historian was rendered by Thomas Hobbes in the forward to his translation of The Peloponnesian War, in which he referred to Thucydides as “one who, though he never digress to read a Lecture, Moral or Political, upon his own Text, nor enter into men’s hearts, further than the Actions themselves evidently guide him … filleth his Narrations with that choice of matter, and ordereth them with that Judgement, and with such perspicuity and efficacy expresseth himself that (as Plutarch saith) he maketh his Auditor a Spectator. For he setteth his Reader in the Assemblies of the People, and in their Senates, at their debating; in the Streets, at their Seditions; and in the Field, at their Battels.” There indeed is something worth aiming at, however far short of attainment we fall.

I don’t think Foote falls far short at all. In Periclean Athens, there was not much first-hand information upon which the historian could rely, whereas the Civil War is one of the most written-about episodes in all of world history. In addition to making his information vivid, Foote has to wade through terabytes of minutiae to find interesting episodes. One example: Southern General Nathan Bedford Forrest, encountering one of his men in headlong retreat, stopping him in his tracks, pulling down his trousers, and administering a savage spanking with a brush in front of his peers to motivate him to reconsider, which he did.

The period covered by the volume is calendar year 1863, in which two of the most decisive Union victories took place: Gettysburg and Vicksburg — right around the 4th of July. The other major battle discussed was Chickamauga, a Southern victory which ruined the careers of both generals, Rosecrans and Bragg, and which could have gone either way if a third of the Union line had not panicked and run. There is also a brief look-ahead to the spring of 1864, when U.S. Grant was named a Lieutenant General and appointed to the Army of the Potomac.

This 966-page book seems shorter than its weight would imply. That is due to Foote. In fact, this volume is so good that two extracts have been separately published as books: The Stars in Their Courses about Gettysburg and The Beleaguered City about Vicksburg, both of which are excellent reads in their own right.