At my age (eighty), it is tempting the fates to have clearly defined goals, other than to live out the remainder of my days with peace and growing understanding.
Emergency
For what? An earthquake? A tidal wave? A volcanic eruption? An alien invasion? Hangnail?
Eiseley on Spiders
Yesterday, I posted a quote from Loren Eiseley’s The Unexpected Universe about spiders. He frequently thought about and wrote about seemingly small and insignificant creatures. Here is a poem he wrote about spiders in 1928 that was published in Prairie Schooner:
Spiders
Spiders
are poisonous, hairy, secretive.
Spiders are old—
they watch from dark corners while wills are made.
They weave grey webs for flies, and wait…
tiles drop from the roof,
leaves turn moldy under the black, slanting rain,
people die…
and the spiders inherit everything.
Spiders are antiquarians—
fond of living among ghosts and haunted ruins,
The black jade pillars totter in the halls of Marduk;
stones fall from the archways,
at night grey sand
whines by the lampless windows.
The god lies shattered,
his green-jeweled eyes are gone;
the sockets are hacked and empty as a skull.
Upon his face a squat tarantula is creeping…
a bland yellow noon
smiles at a black tarantula
creeping on the skull of a god!
Spiders are ghouls—
they live secret lives in graveyards,
A red spear of light
pierces the stained vault-window
and makes a warm pool on a black coffin in a niche.
A lean spider droops on a thread from above,
falls into the light, and changes color…
a crimson spider
sprawling on an ebony coffin
mumbles a fly in his toothless mouth.
Spiders…
time is a spider,
the world is a fly
caught in the invisible, stranded web of space.
It sways and turns aimlessly
in the winds blowing up from the void.
Slowly it desiccates… crumbles…
the stars weave over it.
It hangs…
forgotten.
Word
Irregardless
Peace
Above all, stay away from politics and avoid the news like the plague. It’s the arena where the worst shit happens.
Lessons from a Spider
Orb Weaver Spider in Its Web
Probably the most famous lesson learned from a spider weaving its web is of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, who, hidden in a cave, marveled at a spider’s persistence in completing its web. Supposedly, it inspired him to attack the English at Bannockburn in 1314 and win a decisive victory. American naturalist Loren Eiseley learned a very different lesson watching an orb spider weaving its web. The following quote comes from his collection of essays entitled The Unexpected Universe.
For example, I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider.
It happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. I had come up a long gulch looking for fossils, and there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellow-and-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears of buffalo grass at the edge of the arroyo. It was her universe, and her senses did not extend beyond the lines and spokes of the great wheel she inhabited. Her extended claws could feel every vibration throughout that delicate structure. She knew the tug of wind, the fall of a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth’s wing. Down one spoke of the web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to investigate her prey.
Curious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best, raw material for spider. As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of spider I did not exist…..
I began to see that among the many universes in which the world of living creatures existed, some were large, some small, but that all, including man’s, were in some way limited or finite. We were creatures of many different dimensions passing through each other’s lives like ghosts through doors.
Profession
As the son of a master machinist and the brother of a master building contractor, I have the utmost admiration for people who could create with their hands. I, alas, am a bookworm. The only useful thing I can do with my hands is cook (and even there my brother is better).
The Dalai Lama and I
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
I first posted this on January 22, 2021.
The circumstances behind my seeing the Dalai Lama in April 1991 are indelibly etched in my memory. I arranged to first meet my friend George Hoole at his girlfriend’s apartment in Santa Maria, and then we would both go to the University of California at Santa Barbara to see the Dalai Lama give a speech.
I had only been driving for six years at the time, and I did something that killed the engine on my 1985 Mitsubishi Montero. Instead of staying on U.S. 101, I decided to take San Marcos Pass to Solvang, where I would have lunch before making my way back to the 101. Unfortunately, I drove up the pass in second gear. By the time I got to the top of the pass, my engine was a smoking ruin. I arranged to have the car towed back to Santa Monica Mitsubishi for repair, which was no easy thing as ’85 Monteros with automatic transmissions were a rarity.
George came to pick me up in Solvang and I was his passenger for the weekend. We heard the Dalai Lama give a great talk in his broken English … and this turned out to be the beginning of a difficult period for me. I teamed up with George to start a new company called Desktop Marketing Corporation, along with several of my co-workers from Urban Decision Systems, where I had been working since 1971.
It never took off, and I had to live on my savings for over a year, Ultimately, I left Desktop Marketing and managed to get a job in a Westwood accountancy firm called Lewis, Joffe & Company. Plus I had to shell out several thousand dollars for a new Montero engine.
Things don’t always tend to go your way. The early 1990s were a time of career change and retrenchment for me. But I never regret seeing the Dalai Lama in person. There is perhaps no religious figure I respected more, not even Pope John Paul II. There was something about the twinkle in his eyes which helped see me through a difficult period in my life.
I’d see him again if I could, but I would definitely avoid San Marcos Pass.
Shop
Why, books, of course.
Nisei Week in Little Tokyo
Japanese Tea Ceremony
This morning, Martine and I took the E-Train downtown to Little Tokyo. It was the beginning of Nisei Week, and there were some interesting events and exhibits to experience.
We had not attended Nisei Week since before the Covid-19 lockdown, so we were surprised by the smaller crowds and the obvious cutbacks. There were no events in the large Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) courtyard. Some dozen years or so ago, I remember fondly seeing a program of five films starring Raizo Ichikawa at the center’s Aratani Theatre. This year, there were no film programs, no musical programs.
On the plus side, there was a fascinating Japanese tea ceremony. Martine did not know what she was missing when she decided not to attend. The forty-five minute program included a re-enactment of the tea ceremony in a little wooden tea house on the ground floor of the JACCC. There is something about the ritual and multiple exchange of bows that is somehow close to the very soul of the Japanese. And, at the end of the ceremony, we were given some excellent matcha tea and a Japanese sweet.
On the ground floor of the center, we saw a beautiful flower arrangement exhibit. I could kick myself for forgetting to bring my camera, because some of the arrangements were highly artistic; and there was even enough light in the room to make good pictures without flash.
On the fifth floor, we also saw an exhibit of Japanese dolls (not my cup of tea) and ceramics.
After the JACCC events, we trudged to Weller Court and had a so-so Chinese meal until such time as the karate event at the Terasaki Budokan gymnasium on Los Angeles Street was to start. Most of the event was like watching people do calisthenics, except for the team match-ups where there was something that looked like real fighting. There were teams from Japan, the United States, France, and Canada—and that was the order in which they finished.
Some of the Japanese participants were really fierce and fun to watch.
Will we go again next year? Probably not, but we’ll check first to see what they’ll have to offer.
Tarnmoor 
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