The Next Stage of Human Evolution

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You Can Bet a Lot of Gamers and Smartphone Junkies Are Looking Forward to This

I am not looking forward to this, but the younger generation is, I firmly believe. I am referring to the merging of human beings with implanted electronics to create a new supposedly super race of human beings. You can see it in the mass acceptance of such dorky millenialia as e-scooters and Uber. This generation is so wedded to the smartphone that I believe it is inevitable that what today is a device carried in the hand will eventually be an implant. Then one will not have to worry about dropping your invaluable device in the toilet or gutter, leaving one completely at a loss on what to do and how to communicate with one’s fellow beings.

There is an old computer joke about people who die being escorted by Satan to Hell and finding it to be a refreshing place with green trees, splashing fountains, and unending sex. Naturally, they agree with enthusiasm to be admitted. Imagine their dismay when, instead of all the promised perquisites, they find fire, sulfurous fumes, and brimstone—not to mention fierce demons armed with spears and pitchforks.

“Why is this so different from what you showed us at first?” one of them asks with dismay.

“Oh, well,” winks Satan. “That was the demo.”

As one who has been involved in computing for over half a century, I can foresee with crystalline clarity what will happen. Naturally, there will be bugs. And you will wait endlessly to speak to a tech rep named Chip with a thick Gujarati accent when the software has malfunctioned. And it will. Why? Because we are not perfect. Ever since the beginning, technology gives with one hand and takes away with the other.

Looking for the advancement of the human race? No, but welcome to Malfunction Junction.

Incidentally, the illustration above comes from an interesting article from GizmoSnack entitled “Human Cyborgs—The Fusion of Organic Beings with Machines.”

 

 

The Parthian Shot

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The Parthian Shot Illustrated on a Hephthalite Bowl

Listening to the Current Occupant bluster in an all-caps tweet against Iran, I thought back o how, in the past, the Persians managed to flummox their enemies. And the Orange Baboon was not even in the top ten. As great as the extent of the Roman Empire was, it could never count Parthia (Persia) as one of its victims. According to Wikipedia,

Lasting over 680 years, the Roman–Persian Wars, if taken together, form the longest conflict in human history. Despite this, the frontier remained largely stable. A game of tug of war ensued: towns, fortifications, and provinces were continually sacked, captured, destroyed, and traded. Neither side had the logistical strength or manpower to maintain such lengthy campaigns far from their borders, and thus neither could advance too far without risking stretching its frontiers too thin. Both sides did make conquests beyond the border, but in time the balance was almost always restored. The line of stalemate shifted in the 2nd century AD: it had run along the northern Euphrates; the new line ran east, or later northeast, across Mesopotamia to the northern Tigris. There were several substantial shifts further north, in Armenia and the Caucasus. Although initially different in military tactics, the armies of both sides gradually adopted from each other and by the second half of the 6th century they were similar and evenly matched.

The first Roman-Persian/Parthian conflict began in 66 BC, in the time of the Roman Republic. The Romans and Persians did not call it quits until the Islamic conquests put an end to the Sasanian Empire and deprived the Byzantine Empire of much of its southern territories.

You Can Bet the Iranian Generals Know Their Country’s History of Conflict with the West

Perhaps the one symbol these conflicts have left with the oft-defeated Roman legionaries is a tactic known as the Parthian Shot. While appearing to retreat, Parthian light horsemen turned around in their saddles while appearing to retreat and shooting down the advancing Romans and shooting them down with arrows. This requires considerable skill, as the Parthian light horse did not have stirrups and had to guide their mounts strictly by the pressure of their legs.

So rage as the Twitterati will, I suggest that they be wary of the “retreating” enemy. I keep thinking of the advice the Delphic Oracle gave to King Croesus: “If you cross the river, a great empire will be destroyed,” And so it was—but it was his own empire. I believe the winning side were the Persians.

 

The Game of the Goose

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The Map of Paris Around Which the Plot of Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont du Nord (1981) Revolves

Sometimes one sees a great film, but it doesn’t seem so at first. Sometimes it has to rattle around in your head for a while before you realize that what you have just seen is a seminal work of art. Such is the case with the films of Jacques Rivette I have seen, particularly Le Pont du Nord (“North Bridge”).

In that film, we have two main characters, played by the mother/daughter team of Bulle and Pascale Ogier. Bulle (Marie Lafée) has just been released from prison and is too wracked with claustrophobia to enter a building or a car without freaking out. Pascale (called by the boy’s name of Baptiste) runs across Bulle three times, making her conclude that they are destined to be together. Pascale is the ultimate paranoiac, mutilating the eyes of models and actors shown on large posters.

Bulle hooks up with her old boyfriend Julien, who seems to be on some strange quest. Pascale pulls a switch on his portfolio, allowing her and Bulle to see its contents, which consists mostly of newspaper clippings and a map of Paris (above) which acts as a kind of game board. Bulle and Pascal decide to follow it, noticing that it seems to be a version of the European Game of the Goose, similar to the English Snakes and Ladders and the American Chutes and Ladders.

Bulle and Julien meet with death at the square containing the Pont du Nord, but Pascale ends up getting a martial arts lesson from “Max,” one of the mysterious characters who is also playing the game.

Pascale Ogier as Baptiste

I was strongly impressed by Pascale Ogier as the paranoid gamine. Three years later, she was to die at the age of twenty-five of a heart attack aggravated by her use of recreational drugs. She is one of those actresses whose eyes are expressive and who use their glances to attract the viewer’s attention (and, admit it, admiration). I was appalled to find, when checking out her career, that her life was cut so short.

Jacques Rivette is one of the lesser-known directors of the French New Wave. I have seen in all three of his films, set at the beginning—Paris Belongs to Us (1961)—the middle—the film we are discussing—and the end—La Belle Noiseuse (1991)—of his career. All of his films left me hungering for more.

 

Two Poems

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Liu Xiaobo and His Widow Liu Xia

On July 13 of last year, Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died in Shenyang after years of persecution by the monolithic Communist Party he dared to oppose. Here are two poems, first by his widow Liu Xia dedicated to her husband:

Road to Darkness

—For Xiaobo

Sooner or later you will leave
me, one day
and take the road to darkness
alone.

I pray for the moment to reappear
so I can see it better,
as if from memory.
I wish that I, astonished, would glow, my body
in full bloom of light for you.

But I can’t make it except
clenching my fists, not letting
the strength,
not even a little bit of it, slip
through my fingers.

The following is a poem by Liu Xiaobo dedicated to his wife:

Morning

—For Xia

Between the gray walls
and a burst of chopping sounds,
morning comes, bundled and sliced,
and vanishes with the paralyzed souls
of the chopped vegetables.

Light and darkness pass through my pupils.
How do I know the difference?
Sitting in the rust, I can’t tell
if it’s the shine on the shackles in the jail
or the natural light of Nature
from outside the walls.
Daylight betrays everything, the splendid sun
stunned.

Morning stretches and stretches in vain.
You are far away—
but not too far to collect the love
of my night.

Both poems appeared in the September 28, 2017 issue of The New York Review of Books.

 

Trans-Chiquitano

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A Bolivian Passenger Train Between Santa Cruz and Quijarro

As I sit here in L.A. in the middle of a heat wave—and getting no younger in the process—a new vacation trip emerges from the depths of my mind. I have already written about the 17th and 18th century Jesuit missions in South America. The anti-clerical Voltaire in his Candide appeared to be impressed by the enlightened rule of the Jesuits who controlled Paraguay.

You can find out even more by reading the forgotten classic history by R. B. Cunninghame Graham entitled A Vanished Arcadia: Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607 to 1767.

Back then, before the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) and the Chaco War (1932-1935), Paraguay included territory which now belongs to Argentina (Misiones Province) and Bolivia (Santa Cruz Province). There are ruins of Jesuit communities in all three countries.

This set my mind to thinking. There is a famous train route called the Trans-Chiquitano—still in existence as of a year or two ago—between Santa Cruz, Bolivia and Quijarro, just before the border with Brazil. Midway between the two termini and somewhat to the north are the ruins of Jesuit missions. I was thinking of touring the missions in Bolivia, then busing from Corumbá, Brazil (just across the border from Quijarro, Bolivia) to Asunción, Paraguay. There I could hook up with a tour to the Jesuit missions east of Asunción (if such a tour exists). Thereafter, it is a short up across the border to Argentina, where there are well-organized tours of the Jesuit missions such as San Ignacio Mini. From there, it is an easy bus ride to Buenos Aires, from which I can return to the States.

It would be a wild trip, with a long, comfortable train ride and easy stays in Santa Cruz and Buenos Aires. Asunción is a different story, but still quite doable.

 

Favorite Films: Some Came Running

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Opening Scene from Some Came Running

We are so conditioned to thinking of the years after the Second World War as some kind of golden age that it is refreshing to see how American films dealt with the era. Some prominent examples include William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Vincente Minnelli’s film adaptation of James Jones’s Some Came Running (1958). In both pictures, the GIs come home to find that the guys with flat feet who stayed behind had all the jobs, money, and women.

From the opening credit sequence with its urban jazz music track as we see Frank Sinatra asleep on a Greyhound bus as the Indiana landscape rolls past, we feel we are in for something different. On the same bus is Shirley MacLaine as a good-time girl Frank had met in Chicago. Both had been drunk and were put on the bus by friends who specified Parkman, Indiana as the destination.

We see Frank at the beginning in his army uniform, though he has also written two books and spent time on a tramp steamer and as an oil rig worker. In Parkman, he is pursued by Shirley while he falls in love with Martha Hyer, a college writing instructor who is impressed with his writing ability but appalled by his lifestyle. Every time he is repulsed by Martha, Frank draws closer to Shirley MacLaine with her ridiculous doggie purse and showy bad-taste clothing, with an intellect to match.

Frank at Smitty’s Bar with Dean Martin

After his first encounter with Martha Hyer, Sinatra runs into Dean Martin as a southern gambler who uses Parkman as a base as he travels around playing poker in the surrounding Indiana cities. The initial scene at Smitty’s with its loud jazz track is my favorite in the film: It shows the bar with its lowlifes right in the middle of the ultra-respectable small town. It even appears that the bar is next door to Sinatra’s brother’s jewelry shop. (The role of the brother, played by Arthur Kennedy, is his smarmiest and most hypocritical role in a long career of playing villains.)

There are a number of significant divergences between the James Jones novel and the Minnelli film. As I have not yet read James Jones, I cannot say which I prefer. But one thing I can say is that Minnelli’s film is even better than The Best Years of Our Lives at portraying the sick soul of America coterminous with its postwar glory, even though the two films are more than ten years apart.

 

 

 

Serendipity: Paul Theroux in Guatemala

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The Rail Line Between Tecun Uman and Guatemala City

I have read Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas several times. It got me interested in visiting South and Central America in the first place; and I keep tryi9ng to relive the experience of reading it the first time. Back in the 1970s, there was still passenger rail service in Guatemala. Now there are only railroad museums with rusting locomotives. The following is the author’s take on recent Guatemalan history—which is still largely true.

I had a political reverie on that train [the one between Tecun Uman and Guatemala City]. It was this: the government held elections, encouraged people to vote, and appeared to be democratic. The army appeared to be impartial, the newspapers disinterested. And it remained a peasant society, basically underfed and unfree. It must perplex any peasant to be told he is living in a free country, when the facts of life contradict this. It might be that this does not perplex him; he has every reason to believe, in accordance with the evidence, that democracy is feudal, a bureaucracy run by crooks and trigger-happy vigilantes. When one sees a government of the Guatemalan sort professing such high-mindedness in its social aims and producing such mediocre results, one cannot be surprised if the peasant concludes that communism might be an improvement. It was a Latin American sickness: inferior government gave democracy an evil name and left people with no option but to seek an alternative.

 

At The Mall

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The Westfield Mall in Culver City

As the heat of summer has descended on Los Angeles, I have increasingly been spending more time at the air-conditioned Westfield Mall in Culver City. There are places to sit and read, plenty of perfectly acceptable restaurants, and—very important to me—not a large number of smelly bums. Oh, did I sound not too terribly Progressive with that last line? Perhaps it’s because I¹m not 100% Progressive.(Especially as there is a bum encampment across the street from my apartment.)

If you think I should be ever so much more understanding than I appear to be, I urge you to see a 1932 French film director by Jean Renoir called Boudu Saved from Drowning (Boudu sauvé des eaux). A used bookseller played by Charles Granval rescues a tramp (played by the great Michel Simon) from drowning in the Seine. Out of a total lack of gratitude, Boudu opens a rare edition of Honoré de Balzac, spits in it, closes the book, and returns it to the shelf. If someone were to spit in one of my Balzacs, I would gladly perforate his spleen and any adjacent internal organs.

One interesting thing about sitting in a mall is the variety of people who pass by. It is incredible to me how many Americans are grossly overweight. Also, since the mall is located in Culver City, I am amazed by how many drop-dead gorgeous young African-American women there are. Also, at least during the day, people are unusually nice to one another.

Among the restaurants, there are some interesting Asian choices, such as Bibigo (Korean), Dot Saigon (Vietnamese), 101 Noodle Express (pan-Asian), and Panda Express (Gringo Chinese). If I wanted to go more upscale, there is an Oliver Garden and a Wokcano at the ground level.

Next week, the temperature is supposed to be particularly heinous (with temps going up as high as 108° F in the interior, probably higher given the unusual Southern California conservatism in predicting high heat).

 

Outliers: Czeching Out the Women

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Miroslav Tichý (1926-2011) with Home-Made Junk Camera

This is one of an occasional series on alternatives to the “giants” of modern art, particularly the abstract expressionists whose work I so dislike. Today I write about Miroslav Tichý of the Czech Republic, who made his own cameras. His subject? The women of Kyjov, the town where he lived. None of the pictures for which he is noted are sharp. He seems to be intent on seeing how fuzzy his pictures can be and still communicate what he wants them to.

Women at Swimming Pool

The above photograph is a good example. It shows three young bikini-clad girls walking around the edge of a swimming pool.  It is framed by surrounding foliage including the trunk of a tree at left and bushes and leaves on three sides.

Nude with Frame

Here we have what, in the hands of a realist painter, would be a classical nude partially obscured on the lower left by an unidentified object. At first, I thought it was her leg; but it couldn’t be.

Looking at his pictures, I cannot deny that they have a certain elegance and beauty. Tichý described his methods tersely in two unconnected sentences:

  • “First of all, you have to have a bad camera”
  • “If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world.”

As American urban slang shows, you can be bad and good at the same time.

 

Farewell to Icon

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On His Last Full Day

On Sunday, I drove to Altadena to visit Bill and Kathy Korn. Also to see Icon on his last full day in this life. Icon was Kathy Korn’s seeing-eye dog, who, in his thirteenth year,had developed a serious shortage of red-blood cells. He had trouble digesting food, and his breathing was alarmingly shallow.

Although I have had no pets since my elementary school days in Cleveland in the 1950s, I have always developed friendly relationships with my friends’ pets. I can have no animals in my apartment because (1) it would be a violation of my lease and (2) I am allergic—sometimes more, sometimes less.

Whenever I visited the Korns, I looked forward to Icon’s onslaught, in which recently he has been joined by Duchess, Kathy’s current seeing-eye dog. (Icon has been retired for upwards of a year.)

Icon’s “Diploma” from the Seeing-Eye Dog Program


I got a little teary-eyed as I petted Icon for the last time on Sunday evening. I mentioned that we would see each other again in the next life. Who knows?