My brother and I were in Cuenca, Ecuador. In a few days, he had to leave to honor a work commitment, while I was to stay behind for another week. On the Plaza Mayor in Cuenca, Dan and I made an interesting discovery. There was a café that served a perfectly authentic Hungarian tojásleves, or egg soup.
When we checked for any Magyar influence in the kitchen, we were met with looks of confusion and consternation. What reminded us so much of our mother’s beloved egg soup was actually a local dish.
Sometimes, one can travel halfway across the world only to find something that reminds one of home. Not always. More often than not, one makes strange new discoveries.
This time, after a couple weeks in Ecuador, Dan and I had a taste that sent us back to our childhood in Cleveland. Here is a copy of the original Hungarian recipe. Only, Mom would add some sour cream in ours.
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.
There’s little or no enjoyment in writing. If you want to write, you have to write—frequently. It’s a compulsion. On the plus side, being a writer makes me a better reader.
George Howland Beaumont: “Peele Castle in a Storm, Cumbria, 1800”
William Wordsworth is and always has been one of my favorite poets. The Beaumont named in the poem is the painter George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827), creator of the above painting.
Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont
I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.
How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter’s hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet’s dream;
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile mid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;— Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made: And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.
So once it would have been,—’tis so no more; I have submitted to a new control: A power is gone, which nothing can restore; A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.
Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.
O ’tis a passionate Work!—yet wise and well, Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for ’tis surely blind.
But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne! Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.— Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.
Martine and I used to frequent the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo, but were dismayed to find that it had closed its doors earlier this year. Luckily, the City of El Segundo puts on its own car show once a year and closes down its main commercial streets to make room.
Flyer for El Segundo Car Show
Unlike me, Martine is an aficionado of classical American cars, particularly of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. She had a number of conversations with the car owners, two of whom came up to me afterwards and spoke highly of her grasp of the subject. In all, we spent three and a half hours looking at hundreds of cars, most of which were models about which my little girl knew her stuff.
Martine Admiring Soapbox Derby Racer
At the show, we learned of several other upcoming car shows, including one at the Police Academy in Elysian Park sponsored by the LAPD. It looks like we’ll be going to that one, too.
Much as I dislike writing about politics, I have recently noticed some strange resemblances between the current occupant of the White House and the Roman Emperor Nero:
Actors. Nero appeared before the Roman public as a poet, musician, and charioteer; while our president was famed as the actor in a reality TV show called “The Apprentice.”
Wrecking. Nero purportedly burned down a large part of Rome so he could build a gigantic palace for himself called the domus aureus, “The Golden House.” Our president is destroying the institutions of government that he feels do not benefit billionaires like himself.
Praetorian Guard. Nero was murdered by his own Praetorian Guard. Our president, on the other hand, is developing his own Praetorian Guard called ICE. To date, they have not murdered him.
Low-Class Supporters. The provision of “bread and circuses” to the Roman masses made Nero popular among lower class denizens of Rome. Whereas the persecution of various minorities is popular among the red-hatted MAGA supporters of our president.
So far, our current president has not directly ordered any of his family murdered, but if I were Melania, Donald Junior, or Eric, I would not sleep well of nights.
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.
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.
Tarnmoor 
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