Surrender Monkeys? Freedom Fries?

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Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse

Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse

At some point in the recent past, Americans have decided that the French were “surrender monkeys” for their lack of interest in acceding to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Around the same time, French Fries were officially renamed Freedom Fries in the U.S. Congressional Cafeteria.

To me, this is very much a “But what have you done for me recently?” type of judgment. We seem to have forgotten that if it weren’t for French help during the American Revolution, we would be calling them Chips instead and revering the memory of King George III. Not only did we have the help of Lafayette and the Comte de Rochambeau, but a substantial French fleet headed up by Admiral de Grasse (shown above) precipitated Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown.

When the French had their own revolution a few years later, they paid us the supreme compliment of imitating our Constitution.

In the years since those heady times, we have decided that the French don’t like us. In defense, we’ve decided not to like them. Most of our present attitude is a misconception based on the notion that the French pretend not to understand good plain American English and persist in their twonky little European language. (Far be from us to learn another language, especially since we are the world’s only legitimate certified superpower.)

Martine and I have visited France twice (actually, Martine was born there), and we’ve always met with courtesy, even in Paris. Of course, we both speak French after a fashion—ungrammatical, perhaps, but sufficiently clear. We’ve even been praised for our valiant attempts at speaking the language. I suspect the French know that Martine and I like them, and it shows in our demeanor.

I remember one visit to Paris when I decided to risk ordering a tripe dish. After I nibbled away at it for a bit, I simply mentioned to our waiter, “Monsieur, j’étais trop brave.” (“Sir, I was too brave.”) The waitstaff and surrounding diners broke out laughing, and I joined them. Another time, we were at a little brasserie in Montparnasse, and I found I didn’t have enough francs (that was before the euro) for a tip. Instead, I asked our waiter if he would accept Paris Metro tickets as a tip in lieu of cash—since we were headed out to the airport immediately afterwards. He gratefully accepted and wished us a safe journey back.

With the French, I suspect it’s simply a case of showing attitude and getting attitude in return. Best to leave our attitudes behind in the States and enjoy ourselves among an intelligent and courageous people.

The Yuck Factor

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A Mixed Grill for a Couple in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

A Mixed Grill for Two in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

I shot the above in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, in November 2011. It represents a mixed grill ordered by a young couple who graciously allowed me to photograph their lunch with a broad smile on their faces. It represents various cuts of beef, including sausages with a blood sausage in the middle accompanied by various organ meats.

The number of people who would find such a meal disgusting is growing by leaps and bounds, especially among the young. Let’s face it, meat can be gross—even if the animals are grass-fed the way South American beef and lamb typically are. American feedlots, if anything, result in even stranger meat, including such additives as “pink slime,” which was in the news recently, as well as various exotic antibiotics and hormones.

One of the best American growers with which I am familiar in the Harris Ranch located midway between Los Angeles and Sacramento on Interstate 5. Just north of the hotel and restaurant building is a huge feedlot whose odors have passersby on the freeway quickly pulling up their windows and recirculating their interior air for about two miles. And that is better than most beef you are likely to find at your neighborhood supermarket. I imagine that most Midwestern feedlots would be the mammalian equivalent of Dante’s Inferno.

Now Martine and I are both meat-eaters, but in a relatively small way. You might even say we’re part-time vegetarians. Would we ever become 100% vegetarians? Perhaps, if circumstances forced us, we would. In general, however, we shy away from vegetarian restaurants. It is not because we don’t like vegetarian dishes: It’s just that there is a certain vegetarian cuisine—particularly in the United States—which is almost offensively bland. If one is a vegetarian because one finds meat yucky, then one is likely to eat exclusively blah food.

One example of a vegetarian cuisine that I like is that of India. In fact, whenever I go to an Indian restaurant, I usually concentrate on the vegetarian dishes exclusively, unless some fish is on the menu. Indian food is almost never blah. (One exception: The Govinda’s Restaurants run by the Hare Krishnas, who have managed to banish all flavor from their menus.)

There are two vegetarian restaurants within walking distance of my office. I do not patronize either of them. As I am a diabetic, I have to avoid carbohydrates as much as possible; and American vegetarian food is usually fairly heavily laden with carbs.

As I write this, I am thinking of cooking a Chana Dhal next week (a curry with chick peas), if Martine is willing.

Diverted

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Mont St Michel in Normandy

Mont St Michel in Normandy

Yesterday was Martine’s birthday. In the mailbox was a card and letter from her half-sister Madeleine in St-Lô in Normandy. In her letter, she wrote that she hoped her sister could come and see her soon, as she is getting on in years. On a day when she should have been celebrating, there were tears in my little girl’s eyes. As it happened, I had the power to change that around. Martine is afraid of going to France alone because she is not good at transportation planning. As it happens, that is my specialty, and my French is better than hers, even though she was born in Paris.

So, I suggested to Martine that I could take a rain check on Peru and join her in France. I don’t think I could have given her a better gift. Martine started dreaming about croissants and how I could have great cheeses for breakfast (yes, I am a devoted cheese-eater). Within minutes, I came up with a plan: Fly to Paris and stay there for a couple of days while visiting her friend Angéla in Montmartre, then take the TGV direct from Gare Montparnasse to St Lô and visit Madeleine and a couple tourist sights, such as the big rock illustrated above. From there, it’s back to Paris to transfer to the TGV from Gare de Lyon to Avignon. A couple days there, then Arles, Nice, and Monte Carlo. Finally, we could take a train to the Cinque Terre in Italy for several days of peace and rest. Then a train to Milan, from which we would fly back to LAX. Martine approved on the spot.

It would have been easy for me to be selfish at this juncture, but I cannot be happy unless Martine is happy. Else my trip to Peru would have been an anxious dirge. Now there is a chance I can get Martine to accompany me to Peru in the future—if our health prevails. I think the trip to France would be a powerful motive for Martine’s back pain to disappear altogether. (So many ailments have a psychosomatic trigger.)

War on Xmas Begins in Earnest

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Papa Bear Told Us This Would Happen

Papa Bear Warned Us This Would Happen

Just as Bill O’Reilly predicted, the War on Christmas has begun in earnest. Guantanamo is being stripped of terrorist chauffeurs and brothers-in-law to make room for the Clauses and their adherents, including a particularly sinister lot of elves. Breaking news has reported the death of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, whose bleeding carcass was last seen draped over the front of a Humvee, and of the Little Drummer Boy, who took a load of PAHRUPPAPUMMPUMM between the eyes. Grim, sooty smoke spiraled up from stacks of burning greeting cards and gift wrapping paper. Creches were attacked with anti-tank weapons and blown to smithereens.

People who voted in Obama over Mitt Romney in November 2012 are shaking their heads in dismay. Even losing candidate Mitt Romney commented: “Look, fellas, I may be a Mormon; but we’re all Christians here, aren’t we? Aren’t we?”

You wouldn’t think so if you saw the forces arraigned to fight The Former Holiday, as it’s now being called in the news media. In a brave show of resistance, the Faux News Channel began calling itself The Christmas Station until the Federal Communications Commission threatened to shut them down with an attack column headed toward their broadcast headquarters. With many of its pundits under arrest, including O’Reilly, for promoting Christian values, the channel has turned mostly to agricultural reports and generic ethical sermonizing until the situation is clarified.

According to General Mohammed al Scroogey, the Pentagon spokesman, “We have made contact with the forces of Christmas and, on a large scale, torn down their flocked trees and ripped out their strings of lights. Our aim is to confiscate all Santas, elves, sleighs, bells, snowflakes, and other holiday paraphernalia until all that remains is devoid of religious or other celebratory intent.”

All radios played martial music while the brave heroes of the attack brigades wipe out every trace of the despised holiday. President Barack Hussein Obama offered prayers to Allah for the speedy success of what has come to be known as Operation Grinch.

 

 

 

Things That Might Have Been

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Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

It takes a massively creative mind to imagine not only what has been, but what has not been—though they might well have been! I love the poetry of the late Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges, who died in 1986. Blind for much of his adult life, Borges saw things few poets have seen. Although he wrote less as he aged, everything he wrote is precious.

Things That Might Have Been

I think of things that weren’t, but might have been.
The treatise on Saxon myths Bede never wrote.
The inconceivable work Dante might have had a glimpse of,
As soon as he’d corrected the Comedy’s last verse.
History without the afternoons of the Cross and the hemlock.
History without the face of Helen.
Man without the eyes that gave us the moon.
On Gettysburg’s three days, victory for the South.
The love we never shared.
The wide empire the Vikings chose not to found.
The world without the wheel or the rose.
The view John Donne held of Shakespeare.
The other horn of the Unicorn.
The fabled Irish bird that lights on two trees at once.
The child I never had.

In another of his poems, Borges imagines that Don Quixote never left his library, but imagined all his adventures based on the epics of chivalry he read there.

Read Borges, and before long you, too, will see the other horn of the unicorn.

 

Noir

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"William Irish" Was a Pen Name Used by Cornell Woolrich

“William Irish” Was a Pen Name Used by Cornell Woolrich

Over the past several months, I have been reading the large Library of America omnibus volume entitled Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s. Included were the following titles:

  • James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (filmed by Tay Garnett starring John Garfield and Lana Turner)
  • Horace McCoy’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sidney Pollack’s 1969 film of this starred Jane Fonda)
  • Edward Anderson’s Thieves Like Us (made into a great Nicholas Ray film called They Live by Night)
  • Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock (made into a great John Farrow film with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton)
  • William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley (another great John Farrow film, this time with Tyrone Power)
  • Cornell Woolrich’s I Married a Dead Man (published under the pen name William Irish)

So many of the noir novels of the period were turned into classic films that I begin to think the whole genre is a mirror in which we as Americans see ourselves. Although the British are just as famous with their detective novels, it was an American who invented the genre with Edgar Allan Poe’s stories such as “The Gold Bug,” “The Purloined Letter,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” And while Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, and countless others were practicing their craft in Britain, their American counterparts created works that were more urban, more mean, and more essentially American.

Frankly, I came to the novels by way of the films. I was a collaborator (though in a minor way) with my friends Alain J. Silver and James Ursini in their genre-defining book Film Noir: The Encyclopedia published by Overlook Press. Other great resources are the same authors’ The Noir Style (also Overlook) and the Taschen Book entitled Film Noir.

Both the novels and the films generally tend to be excellent and well worth your time.

Looking Backward

PICcrab

Crab

A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the days that are past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward. The brighter the light diffused around him by the progress of reason, the thicker is the darkness of antiquated barbarism, in which he buries himself like a mole, to throw up the barren hillocks of his Cimmerian labours.—Thomas Love Peacock, “The Four Ages of Poetry,” Works Vol. III

Of Mexican Beer

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One of My Favorites

One of My Favorites

Today I walked into Santa Monica to use a 20% off coupon at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on the Promenade. Because Martine has another bout of irritable bowel syndrome, she is on a diet of chicken and cookies for now (though I am not sure that is the best thing for her). After buying a couple of DVDs (Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho Dayu and Federico Fellini’s 8½) and a Ukrainian mystery novel (Andrey Kurkov’s Death and the Penguin), I decided to stop for a quick lunch at La Lotería Grill.

Although beer is one of the beverages which is discouraged because of my Type 2 Diabetes, I decided to risk ordering a Dos Equis Lager to accompany my two tacos de huachinango (that’s Pacific Red Snapper in Nahuatl). I thought as I sipped the beer how much I loved Mexican beers during my many travels in that country between 1975 and 1991. In Yucatán, there was Carta Clara, Montejo Clara, and Léon Negra by the now defunct Cervecería Yucateca, which sold out to Modelo. In Mazatlán and along the Pacific Coast, I would drink Pacifico Clara. And just about anywhere, I would drink Cerveza Superior from Cervecería Cuautémoc-Moctezuma or Corona, the only good beer produced by Grupo Modelo.

Today turned out to be an unseasonably hot day in Southern California, so the beer went down smoothly, as did the fish tacos. It may be months before I venture another bottle of beer, but I will eventually return for that same sensation. And it will probably be another Mexican beer. I have many happy memories with Mexican beers going back a long time.

I don’t write very much of my travels in Mexico. That is mostly because I would have to convert a ton of Kodachrome 25 slides to digital format. I’ll probably do it eventually, and I will regale you with my adventures in Mexico, mostly in Yucatán and Chiápas, but also including Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, Teotihuacán, and Tula. Those were good times, and that’s when I caught the travel bug big time.

A Hungarian Christmas

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A Hungarian Christmas Tree

A Hungarian Christmas Tree

There are fewer things that can elicit such an outpouring of sentiment in me as the sound of the Hungarian language. My own knowledge of my native language is unidiomatic and ungrammatical, with a child’s vocabulary, but nonetheless, there is that rhythm and intonation that makes me think I am home. When I hear the Magyar National Anthem, or Hymnusz, I stand at attention in a way that I do not when I hear that sad old English barroom song that is the National Anthem of the United States. (And I mean no disrespect to my adopted country when I say this.) See what the Magyar Nemzeti Himnusz sounds like when done right:

It’s the same way with Christmas carols. I like many of the English carols—except for that pahruppahpummpumm monstrosity—but the Hungarian carols all sound sweeter to my ears. Try this one on for size from the group Labdarosza (“Ball Rose”?):

I have no idea what those instruments are, but I have heard them in my dreams. Here is one more, whose translated name means “Oh, Fortunate Night!”:

Although the language that is most familiar to me in English, I find that it is a language which I admire but cannot love. I sometimes feel like an exiled person. But then, I think that, to a certain extent, that is true of all of us. We have been rudely banished from childhood and made to grow up in a world which is not altogether responsive to our needs. What we have to do in our lives is to take advantage of that disconnect and use it as a source of our creativity.

Note that behind everything I say is a disconsolate Magyar six thousand miles and a generation away from what sustained him.

 

 

 

 

Thirteen Trolls for Christmas

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The Icelandic Yule Lads Make Up for Santa Claus

The Icelandic Yule Lads Make Up for Santa Claus

Icelanders celebrate Christmas with the thirteen Yule Lads, or Jólasveinarnir. You might say it’s the 13 Days of Christmas, except these begin on December 12. As they come, day by day, they reward good children by placing gifts into their shoes which have been left on window sills. And if the children are bad, there are always rotten potatoes.

Here is a description of the Yule Lads:

  1. Stekkjarstaur, or “Sheep-Cote Clod.” Harasses sheep, but is impaired by his stiff peg-legs. Arrives December 12, leaves December 25.
  2. Giljagaur, or “Gully Gawk.” Hides in gullies while waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk. Arrives December 13, leaves December 26.
  3. Stúfur, or “Stubby.” Abnormally short. Steals pans to eat the crust left on them. Arrives December 14, leaves December 27.
  4. Þvörusleikir, or “Spoon-Licker.” Steals long-handled wooden spoons (þvörur) to lick. Is extremely thin due to malnutrition. Arrives December 15, leaves December 28.
  5. Pottaskefill, or “Pot-Scraper.” Steals leftovers from pots. Arrives December 16, leaves December 29.
  6. Askasleikir, or “Bowl-Licker.” Hides under beds waiting for someone to put down their askur, or bowl, which he thereupon steals. Arrives December 17, leaves December 30.
  7. Hurðaskellir, or “Door-Slammer.” Likes to slam doors in the middle of the night. Arrives December 18, leaves December 31.
  8. Skyrgámur, or “Skyr-Gobbler.” Likes to steal skyr, the yummy Icelandic equivalent of yogurt. Arrives December 19, leaves January 1.
  9. Bjúgnakrœkir, or “Sausage-Swiper.” Prefers to hide out in the rafters and snatch sausages that were being smoked. Arrives December 20, leaves January 2.
  10. Gluggagœgir, or “Window-Peeper.” A voyeur Yule Lad who would look through windows for things to steal. Arrives December 21, leaves January 3.
  11. Gáttaþefur, or “Doorway-Sniffer.” This one has an unusually large nose and an acute sense of smell which he uses to locate laufabrauð. Arrives December 22, leaves January 4.
  12. Ketkrókur, or “Meat-Hook.” As you can probably guess, he uses a hook to steal meat. Arrives December 23, leaves January 5.
  13. Kertasníkir, or “Candle-Stealer.” Follows children around in order to steal their candles (and eat them), Arrives December 24, leaves January 6.

The above illustration differs slightly from the above list, which is taken from Wikipedia, You get the general idea, though. Instead of a quick slide down the chimney with presents to leave under the tree, and leaving as soon as the milk and cookies have been imbibed, these snarky little trolls will take up more than three weeks of your time in all stealing your food, rogering your wife, making your dog pregnant, and causing various other types of mischief.

Just between you and me, I’ll take Santa.