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Pumpkinspicemas

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Well, October is here. That scent in the air is Pumpkin Spice. It’s everywhere! In vacant lots there are pumpkin patches with towering bounce houses. Vacant stores are full of Halloween costumes and other accessories for those All Hallows Eve parties.

And when November comes, the pumpkins and bounce houses are packed away to be replaced by Christmas tree lots.

The sad thing is that, with the current economy in tatters, there are all too many vacant lots and empty retail establishments. Instead of lending a celebratory tone to the oncoming holidays, there is this grim feeling that there are too damned many vacancies.

For some reason I am unable to determine, Los Angeles is building ever more empty commercial properties, now that retail seems to be dying. Sometimes I think they should change the name of the city to “For Lease.”

All along the E Line train route that I take to go downtown on most Thursdays (not today: it was too hot again), large office buildings and apartment towers have sprung up. Is the space fully leased? Not a chance!

A Grim Future?

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Wild Surf Destroying Beachside Homes in Dana Point

Southern California has had a rough time of it over the last two years. First there were the two January 2025 fires that destroyed two Los Angeles neighborhoods: Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Now, over the last several weeks, there was the El Niño from hell that led to the beaches from Los Angeles to San Diego counties being all but destroyed by high tides caused by a seemingly endless series of Central Pacific tropical storms.

A corollary is the superhot summer of 2026 that refuses to quit. Today the beach was hotter than the Coachella Valley. Technically, this is autumn; but it doesn’t look like it. The only thing that’s different is that the humidity is way down.

What¹s next? A killer earthquake along the San Andreas fault? The complete desertification of the California coast so that it resembles the Atacama in Chile? More wildfires? Monster flooding? Killer heat waves that make L.A. resemble a 350° oven (177° Celsius)? Will AI lead to massacres of innocent humans? Are there, in fact, any innocent humans?

Another summer like this one would make me think seriously of moving to Nome, Alaska, or Ushuaia, Argentina (which lies a mere 600 miles, or 966 kilometers, from Antarctica.

But then one tends to look mat the future by straight-lining the disasters of the past. Nature doesn’t work that way. With all our science, we have no idea what will happen next, and when, and how disastrous. Any forecasting based on this year’s events is (hopefully) jejune.

Astonishing Strides

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Food Vendor at a Bangkok Night Market

It is strange to be suddenly confronted by truth in places that one had not thought to look for it. Such was the case this evening when I encountered it in a little-known mystery novel set in Bangkok. The Sonchai Jitgpleecheep novels of John Burdett have been a recent preoccupation of mine during this hot and seemingly endless summer in Southern California. Then, like a Buddhist burst of contemplation, there it was a fifth of the way through Bangkok Asset, the sixth novel in the series:

Man has made astonishing strides recently in all things inessential. The price we’ve paid is enormous. Stuck with an infantile description of reality that cannot come to terms with death or even lesser challenges, the eternal infant must torture himself for lifetime after lifetime, probably without end.

This is what happens when one is a serious bookworm. The truth is out there, even in seemingly unusual places, like genre series novels.

Sometime this month, I’m going to tackle the Collected Stories of William Faulkner. For some reason, I’ve always liked to read Faulkner during the hottest month of the year. I might suddenly find some pearl of wisdom that stands out, or I might not. On the other hand, I might read some arrant piece of trash an find myself at the edge of a cliff that stretches to the horizon.

The Conversation

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Koi at Descanso Gardens, February 2007

Whenever I see a pond that has been stocked with koi, it seems as if I am looking at the gods’ own handwriting. Each fish is like a separate letter of the alphabet as it moves around in the water with its fellows.

The same goes for clouds. Or groups of birds, or even insects.

What is the point of perceiving things in this way? I believe that, even if we don’t know what these formations or creatures are signifying, we humans are perhaps part of an ongoing conversation—one which we might never understand in full or in part. That realization is good for us.

It’s when we don’t realize that we are part of the conversation that we are most unhappy.

Today at Chace Park in the Marina, it was a cloudy and very humid day (thanks to the monsoonal moisture from Mexico), but the crows and squirrels very very much in motion, as were visitors to the park.

Disability

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Early this week, I filled out an application for a handicapped parking placard and left it with my physician to fill out the info on my disabilities. It’s difficult to admit it, but I am a little wobbly on my pins. Years ago, I had hip replacement surgery; and, lately, my knees has resisted any attempt to stand up and walk normally. So now, at the age of eighty-one, I now regard myself as disabled. And it doesn’t look as if I’ll qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

No matter. I realize I can no longer regard myself as a young man. In fact, I never really could. Ever since my brain tumor at the age of twenty-one, I have seen myself as somehow outside of time. Am I really over eighty years old? The numbers don’t lie, so I won’t either.

The only difference the handicapped placard will make is that parking will be much easier. I don’t mind walking a bit, but I hate having to walk three blocks to catch a train downtown from the Bundy-Exposition Station because construction workers building a giant condo complex are taking up all the non-handicapped spaces. And it will be nice not having to carry a roll of quarters in my car for parking meters. (In California, I can now park by any on-street parking meter without having to pay.)

Does that mean I am now officially an old fart?

A Different Order of Beauty

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Orchids at Honolulu’s Foster Botanical Garden

At first, I saw nature from the point of view of a Midwesterner. Cleveland had some few beauty spots in its extensive park system, but they tended to be muted. And then there was the matter of Cleveland’s horrible weather.

Then, when I came out to Southern California, I saw that the desert had an entirely different beauty. I am still exploring it slowly. After all, the desert is not an inviting place during the summer months.

In our recent visits to Honolulu, Martine and I visited a couple of botanical gardens, most notably the Foster which abuts Chinatown on the north. We didn’t see any of the other islands, though I am sure there were eye-opening botanical gardens elsewhere, too.

I am eager to visit Alaska. There is yet another order of beauty: Majestic and huge, dwarfing the human scale.

In 1965, John Ford directed a film about Sean O’Casey entitled Young Cassidy. In one scene, William Butler Yeats offers the O’Casey character some advice which has kept rattling around inside my head:

You’re young Cassidy, and that makes your passion effortless and artless. Think towards the day when you are old and the passion is painful and remorseless. What you have now has given you pity. What you must one day find will give you compassion. Age, the winter days, make the chill of the frost as compelling as the heat of the sun. Lovers look towards the time of day when the sun goes down. But give a thought to the time, when as an old man, you’ll be surprised to see the sun come up. The warmth of your girl’s body inspires you now, Cassidy. There will be a time when you must be inspired by the Arctic waste. Prepare for that.

Yes, I can see myself being inspired by the Arctic waste, or the Mojave desert, or the tropical islands of the Pacific. It’s all part of really and truly being where you are, and allowing yourself to be acted upon by all the flavors and colors and tonalities of life.

Selling Our Birthright

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Hendrick ter Brugghen’s Esau Selling His Birthright (1627)

The original text comes from the Old Testament, namely Genesis 25:29-34. The quote is from the New King James Version:

Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom [Red]. But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.” And Esau said, “Look. I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?” Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils, then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

I cannot help but think that we Americans are Esau. We were once fairly happy and somewhat more united. Then came the Depression. Then World War Two. We were briefly on top of the world, except that somewhere along the line, we had sold our birthright.

Who is Jacob in this story? Actually, there is no Jacob to whom we sold our birthright. We just dribbled it away, then ate, drank, arose, and went our way, like Esau in the Bible story.

We are not a happy people. Look at our violent movies, our angry music, our wannabe warrior tattoos and facial hair. We had freedom, and still have a lot more than most peoples. But we are fearful and growing stupid with our fear.

We regard it as almost normal that a mentally disturbed person will collect guns to shoot up children at a school or worshipers in a church or—what the hell—random people gathered together for whatever purpose.

Oh what a great fall there was when we sold our birthright. Did we enjoy our pottage? If anything, we enjoyed too much pottage; but for how long can we continue to do so?

It’s a Dog’s Life

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I could not believe my eyes. When I woke up this morning, I joined Martine on the living room couch while she was watching the news. Fox news, as it turned out. Somewhere in South Los Angeles, a pedestrian was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The newscasters practically ignored the dead human, spending all their sympathy on the victim’s dog. Much was made of the fact that a good Samaritan had volunteered to take the dog.

In some future newscast, I fully expect to see the dead pedestrian ignored entirely while an ambulance and psychiatrist are called in for the victim’s pet.

Only in America …

Fantasyland

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Young American men lead a rich fantasy life. It is not enough to be a macho beast: One also has to look like one. In fact, the look is more important than the reality. All one has to do is get the appropriate tattoo, wear intimidating facial hair, drive a 4×4 pickup truck, and hang out with other macho wannabes at the appropriate meeting places.

I became ever more aware of this tendency when I reached an age which would make any macho pretense ridiculous.

As I drive the highways of Los Angeles, I see all around me vehicles for which the owners put up huge amounts of money—not for any realistic expectations, but to belong to a “fantasy league” of young men pretending to be tougher and more suave than they could ever be in real life. They want the street cred of a Danny Trejo while subsisting on Honey Nut Cheerios.

I don’t have any street cred. When I was young, however, I would love to have been thought of as a real dude—rather than a real dud. At least, living as I do is cheaper than trying to shore up a false image.

Not-Doing

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Until 2018, my life was ruled by the clock.

Around then, two things happened that changed my life for the better:

  1. The accounting firm for which I was working shut its doors when the boss retired.
  2. Around that time, I started attending guided mindful meditation sessions at the Central Library.

In the accounting profession, from New Years Day to Tax Deadline Day (April 15 or thereabouts) is sheer, unadulterated hell. By the middle of March, one had to work seven days a week. The stress was beginning to tell on me, particularly with my blood pressure and cholesterol.

The abrupt end to my working career was a blessing. I could read books, see films, and cook interesting meals. I did not find, upon retiring, that I no longer had a purpose in life. My entire working career was as a well-paid mercenary, writing computer programs, handling corporate communications, preparing taxes, and keeping a computer network in working order. My life was ruled by the clock, and I suffered for it.

After many years of doing, I was finding that there was much to be said for not-doing. I didn’t mind waiting at the doctor’s office. If the bus or train was late, what was that to me? I would sit concentrating on my breaths until such time as the train arrived or the doctor called me in. I was no longer worried about being late, as “lateness” no longer had any real urgency or even meaning. I even began to see it as an opportunity to meditate.

When I was in the hospital in January, the nurses could not understand why I didn’t care to watch television—especially as I knew that the selection of channels was not to my liking. All the other patients had to watch the boob tube lest they go stark raving mad.

As a result of my not-doing, I found my blood pressure and cholesterol dropping. I’m still working on my Type 2 Diabetes, but that is partly genetic. Everyone in my family had it, and I didn’t manage to escape the family scourge.

Even though there are a lot of things in my world not to my liking (Trump, MAGA), I feel confident that I can probably hold on for a while longer. Who knows?