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The Moral of Dutch Still Life Paintings

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Jacob van Hulsdonck’s “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Pomegranate”

I have always found classical Dutch still life paintings to be interesting. In many of them, one can find insects devouring the fruits and flowers depicted. But even if insects are not present, as in Jacob van Hulsdonck’s fruit bowl above, there is an implied message that the fruits depicted will be only around for a while.

According to the Getty Center’s website description of the painting:

The still life attests to the fragile and fleeting properties of the natural world. The dimpled skin of the lemons and oranges; the juicy, glistening insides of the pomegranate held gently together by the thin white tissue of the pulp; the leaves and blooms still attached to fruit; and the shiny droplets of water in the foreground are all brilliant, short-lived effects captured on panel.

Ever since I first noticed this tendency, I have always spent extra time viewing Dutch still life paintings. Even if it’s not a Rembrandt, it is a message to us from four centuries ago that tempus fugit. The message is underlined by the fact that the fruit sits in a Ming dynasty bowl of the sort that could be found in a prosperous merchant’s house.

The Los Angeles Police Museum

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On York Boulevard in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles sits the Los Angeles Police Museum with three stories of exhibits on the history of policing in the City of Angels (and Bad-Asses).

Originally, we intended to visit the Heritage Square Museum with its Victorian mansions that were moved to a lot alongside the 110 (Pasadena) Freeway. Unfortunately, they were closed for a fund raising event, so we had to find an alternate. We had visited the LAPD Museum a couple years ago, so we decided to drive north and check to see if it was open. Fortunately, we were in luck.

The second floor has three interesting exhibits that are the heart of the museum:

  • The 1963 kidnapping of LAPD officers Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger by two hoods. Hettinger managed to escape, but Campbell was executed in a Kern County onion field. Joseph Wambaugh wrote a novel about the incident in his novel The Onion Field.
  • The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in May 1974, in which six members of the organization were killed when the LAPD attacked the house they were in.
  • Most interesting to me was the 1997 North Hollywood shootout between two heavily armed bank robbers and several hundred police officers. One of the exhibits was a video of the actual event.

Still from the February 1997 Bank Robbery

Afterwards, Martine and I had lunch and went to one of our favorite stores, the Galco Soda Pop Stop on York Boulevard. They sell an incredible selection of soda pop, beer, and wine from all over the world, in addition to nostalgic candies and toys from the 1950s and 1960s.

A Bowl of Pho

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This afternoon’s Mindful Meditation session ended at one p.m., so I made my way to 505 Spring Street for a bowl of Vietnamese soup at Downtown Los Angeles Pho. I was hungry, and lately I craved the filet mignon pho with extra jalapeño pepper slices. To this I added some Sriracha hot sauce and some hot chile oil. Finally, I added just a small dash of soy sauce.

With my chopsticks, I picked up a slice of jalapeño, a piece of filet mignon, and some rice noodles and shoveled it into my mouth. Oh, it was s-o-o-o-o-o good!

I was not always a chile head. Growing up in Cleveland, I could not believe the spiciness when my mother cooked lecsó, a kind of hot pepper ratatouille much beloved by Hungarians. Even my father wouldn’t touch it, and I certainly wouldn’t.

Coming to Los Angeles changed me in many ways, especially when it came to food. In Cleveland, I hated fish; in L.A., I loved sushi. In Cleveland, I preferred my food bland; in L.A., I went way past jalapeño to habanero.

Does all that hot stuff bother me? Nope. In fact, I find each chopstick portion a delight. When people I know of the bland food persuasion are surprised by my food tastes, I tell them that chile peppers are a vegetable, and what do they have against vegetables?

The Tyger

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Every time I read this poem by William Blake, I am impressed anew by its greatness. Its very simplicity is deceptive, as it hints at levels of mystery and savagery that underlie our workaday world. I have posted this poem before, but I continue to be mightily impressed by it.

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies. 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears 
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Totem

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Detail from Totem Pole in Victoria BC

Totem poles are some of the most accessible images of aboriginal spirits. The best I’ve seen were on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, mostly in Victoria and Cowichan. After seeing them, I read Franz Boas’s book Primitive Art (1927). As I wrote in a previous blog, “It’s a difficult read, but like many difficult reads, eminently worthwhile.”

One of the reasons that totem poles are so stunningly impressive is that they are still being made by Indians in the U.S. and First Nations members in British Columbia. Unlike Hopi Kachinas, which are also still being made, they are a public art form; and many old poles have been gathered together and put on display.

I would love to visit the Alaska panhandle to see the Haida totem poles on Prince of Wales Island, and perhaps also the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia north of Vancouver Island.

Totem Poles at Cowichan in 2004

One could stand in front of a totem pole and try to guess at what the images are signifying. For instance, in the loincloth-clad figure on the right above, he is cradling a fish (probably a salmon) in his left hand while wearing an oversized hat with blue and red strips along the bottom. What does that mean?

If I were to go back to Cowichan for another look, I would be deeply disappointed. When I did go back a few years later, the totem poles were looking uncared for and there was talk of turning the tribal facility into a conference center. I wonder if that ever happened.

AI Gets Stupid

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I was doing some research on a film, so I decided to ask Google if there were any movie sequels to City Across the River (1949). At the top of every Google response is what is called the “AI Overview.” What I got in this overview made me guffaw:

There are no direct movie sequels to the 1949 film City Across the River, but other films with similar themes, like the 1956 film Don’t Knock the Rock [Not similar at all], shared some elements or settings with the movie. There is also a more recent film, Across the River and Into the Trees (2022), which may be what you are looking for [It isn’t], although it is not a sequel.

Here are some other movies with “River” in their titles that might be relevant:

Across the River and Into the Trees (2022): a more recent film that might be the one you are thinking of. [No!]
Take Me to the River: New Orleans: The second film in the award-winning series “Take Me to the River” which celebrates the musical history of New Orleans and Louisiana. [NO!!!!!]
The River (1984): A film starring Mel Gibson about a farming couple in the face of economic hardship. [No No No]
Deliverance (1972): A film starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds about a canoe trip that goes horribly wrong. [Correct me if I’m wrong, but is “River” in the title?]
The River Wild (1994): A film starring Meryl Streep as a woman whose family is taken hostage during a river rafting trip. [Nope]

All of the titles suggested by Google’s AI are totally off the mark. City Across the River is about a teenage gang in 1940s Brooklyn. The word “River” is in the title, but has no bearing on the film’s story.

As it happens, there was—sort of—a sequel to the film. It was called Cry Tough (1950), though it changed the locale and virtually everything else that was in Irving Shulman’s sequel. Instead of Jewish Brooklyn, the story is set in Spanish Harlem with a Puerto Rican gang.

Now if I had believed Google’s bumbling AI overview, I would have been laughed at. And I would have richly deserved it.

At Saint Sophia

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Details of Mosaic at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral

This was the second Greek Festival at Saint Sophia since the end of the Covid-19 lockdown. It wasn’t like it used to be before the epidemic hit. Nonetheless, Martine and I enjoyed ourselves with some excellent spanakopita (spinach and feta cheese in a pastry).

We spent an hour in what is the most beautiful church in Los Angeles, whose building was spearheaded by American movie executive Charles P. Skouras. During services, Skouras controlled the lighting in the church from his reserved pew in the left aisle. Never mind that he was a bit of a control freak, but his splendid church is worth visiting. It sits on Normandie one block south of Pico Boulevard.

As America turns from being a country that welcomed minorities to one that imprisons and deports them, it is inevitable that, as time passes, the celebrations will become less ethnic, the food less authentic, and the parishioners more English-speaking. Also, we miss Father John Bakas who served for twenty-seven years as Dean of the Cathedral, but who retired in 2023.

I’ll still try to show up at the festivals, even though I am Hungarian and Martine is French. We love Greek food and find Orthodox Christianity more genuinely welcoming.

Saint Sophia’s Greekfests used to be held during the summer. The temperature today was perfect (in the mid-seventies).

A Moment of Adrenal Insufficiency

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Lethargy Struck Yesterday

It happened a little differently yesterday. After breakfast, I started feeling extremely lethargic. Instead of doing anything, I just sat on the couch staring at the wall … at the television which was off … at my feet. At one point, when Martine came into the room, I told her I was suffering another adrenal episode, meaning that I was not getting any adrenaline.

Usually when that happens, my digestive system goes out of whack with explosive vomiting and diarrhea. Followed by blacking out. Not this time. Fortunately.

I knew what to do. I was able to stand up and walk to the kitchen, where my 10 mg Hydrocortisone HCL pills were stored. I took three tabs with cold water and returned to the living room couch.

After several hours of s-l-o-w-l-y diminishing lethargy, I got all better. But I took it slowly. There’s no way of rushing the cure.

Because I have no pituitary gland, there are times when my body is just not getting the adreno-cortico-tropic hormone (ACTH) it needs. In the past, I was usually admitted to the emergency room when this happened, and I had to hang out there for several days while the cardiologists who usually run the ER tried to puzzle out what I had and how it affected their specialty. (It doesn’t really.)

This morning I felt good so I went downtown and attended the Thursday Mindful Meditation session at the Central Library. After, I went across the street and had a big bowl of pho at the Downtown LA Pho Restaurant. I was back to normal.

Preparing for Halloween

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British Gothic Novelist Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)

Usually, I spend much of the month of October each year reading gothic or horror fiction. I have already started reading Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797), after which she quietly stopped writing and spent the last twenty-six years of her life as a private person. I have fond memories of reading her novels The Romance of the Forest (1791) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).

Also, I will inevitably read one of Joyce Carol Oates’s underrated gothic novels or collections of short fiction. Other possibles are Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman. And I will certainly re-read some of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories.

In November, I will write a post detailing with gothic/supernatural/horror titles I have read.