Glorious Fourth

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As I write these words, the air is thick with explosions as juvenile delinquents of all ages set off fireworks, terrorizing their pets and injuring themselves in an orgy of carelessness. This is what the anniversary of our independence has come to mean: explosions and barbecues.

Forgive me i I choose not to join in the festivities. At one time, I did; but the combination of too much charred meat and too many overcrowded fireworks displays has, in time, soured me.

Instead I took a walk to the Colorado Center’s park, at a central point called The Landing, where there is shade, a roof, and metal seating. On weekends and holidays, I am more likely to see janitors and security guards going from building to building than locals. There was a bench with two girls, a couple of serious kickboxers practicing, and two or three people walking their dogs.

I had planned to begin reading Georges Simenon’s The Shadow Puppet, an early (1932) Inspector Maigret novel; but I found had already finished the book same under another title, namely Maigret Mystified. No matter, I merely reveled in the peace and quiet with relatively few fireworks explosions in the background.

Then I walked the mile and a half back to my apartment and continued my reading of an interesting history of Spain by John A. Crow entitled Spain: The Root and the Flower.

Work Friends

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Don Kiyomi Yamagishi (1960-2017)

I worked for a quarter of a century for two accounting firms, the second of which was an outgrowth of an earlier firm. During that time, the best friends I had at work were two accountants. Don Kiyomi Yamagishi was a Nisei and in every way more of an American than I ever was. Danilo Cabais Peña was a Filipino. Both passed away in the late 2010s. (Somewhere, I have a picture of Dan Peña; but it will take me some time to find it. When I do, I’ll post it.)

Both of my accountant friends were genuinely good human beings. Surprisingly, that’s not always true in that particular profession, where the temptation to cheat carries both penalties and rewards.

I was greatly saddened that I lost both of my friends—both within the space of a single year. I attended both of their funerals and had to soldier on at work for another year without their wise counsel.

No life is without heartbreak.

Taking Stock

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An All-But-Abandoned Park in Santa Monica

This was for me a day of taking stock and meditating. It all started with a fortune cookie I received at lunch from Siam Chan: “You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

When I got home, I decided to take a walk to a little park at 26th Street and Broadway in Santa Monica. I grabbed my copy of Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha and set out. It’s a nice little park which is all but abandoned on weekends. (On weekdays, the surrounding office buildings are crowded with folk.)

Arriving there, I grabbed a chair and started to read. As usual, Buddha hit the nail on the head:

And yet it is not good conduct
That helps you on the way,
Nor ritual, nor book learning,
Nor withdrawal into the self,
Nor deep meditation.
None of these confers mastery or joy.

O seeker!
Rely on nothing
Until you want nothing.

Again and again, it is he stifling of desire that is the key:

Death overtakes the man
Who gathers flowers
When with distracted mind and
     thirsty senses
He searches vainly for happiness
In the pleasures of the world.
Death fetches him away
As a flood carries off a sleeping village.

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
Frito Pies

				

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This Is the Way It Looked When I First Ate One





The first time I ate a Frito Pie, it looked like the above photo, and it was purchased from where it was invented, a lunch counter in Santa Fe, New Mexico.





The second time was today. I cooked it myself from this recipe. As I made it to please Martine, the finickiest of all eaters, there was no way I could add raw onions as a garnish. And I used a mild La Victoria Red Enchilada sauce, even though my preferences is for spicy hot dishes. I second the recommendation of using Ranch House canned beans, as they go very well with this recipe. Oh, and I recommend extra sharp cheddar cheese. By the way, don’t use any other chips other than original recipe Fritos: That’s why it’s called Frito Pie.





Tomorrow, I will serve the leftovers with cut up fresh avocado. It’s not in the recipe, but I think it would go well with it.






			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
A Visit to Asteroid City

				

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A Strange Film Set Near the California-Nevada Border in the 1950s





Yesterday afternoon, I went to see a matinee performance of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (2023). I had seen his earlier The French Dispatch (2021), which did the same for France as Asteroid City did for the 1950s American desert. 





Is it a great film? Not exactly, but I think it is definitely worth seeing. Wes Anderson has, rattling around somewhere in his head, a great film; and I believe it will eventually be made. 





Picture a group of Junior Stargazers and their parents descending on a nowhere town in the Mohave Desert. With a cast that includes Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Margaret Robie, Steve Carell, and some very talented juvenile actors, the film ranged from riveting to “What the …?” 





During the Junior Stargazers awards ceremony, a space alien kidnaps a meteor that was on display and later returns it with various inventory markings. The military proceeds to put Asteroid City on lockdown, with no one able to leave or arrive—until the alien makes his second appearance.










One of Two Nuclear Tests That Occur During the Course of the Film





The most striking thing about the film is its visual style. It all looks like desert postcards of the period. except for a connecting story of a writer and a group of play actors which is not only shot in black and white, but in Academa 4:3 ratio, whereas most of the film is in color and wide screen. In fact, the weakest part of the film is this connecting story.





I remember when I first saw The French Dispatch on TV at my brother’s house. At first, I didn’t know what to make of it. Some of it I loved, some I thought deplorable. 





No matter, just hold your nose during the bad parts and enjoy the scenes set in Asteroid City. 

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
Bad Asses for Hire

				

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Something About Hiring a Lawyer I Don’t Understand





People in Southern California must be very accident-prone. I don’t know what other parts of the country are like, but you can’t pass a bus or a row of billboards without seeing an ad  for an attorney who promises “to fight for you” with a 95% or higher ratio of won cases. 





Excuse me, but don’t lawyers get to keep a hefty chunk of what they earn by fighting for you? I see a lot of people who were injured in auto accidents praising their hired bad-ass lawyers to the skies, but I wonder how much of that money actually finds its way into the pockets of poor slobs who have been victimized on the highways of SoCal. 





I know you want to hurt the party that injured you, but what do you really get out of it?





It’s a lot like the lottery. If you win a jillion dollars, unless you opt for a payout over so many decades, you only get what is called the present value of a jillion dollars, which might be 0.5 jillion. And then there is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and your state and local income tax authorities, which might lower your winnings to 0.3 jillion dollars. 





But, after all, this is America. Everyone wants to hire a bad-ass to handle your case, but that bad-ass, being a bad-ass, is probably more intent on enriching his own coffers.

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
“This Fabulous Shadow Only the Sea Keeps”

				

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American Poet Hart Crane (1899-1932)





I’ve always liked the poetry of Hart Crane. To begin with, he was from Cleveland, like me. In 1932, he killed himself by jumping overboard from a steamship sailing the Gulf of Mexico—after he had made an unsuccessful sexual overture to a crew member. This poem is a tribute to Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, Billy Budd, and other tales of the sea.





At Melville’s Tomb





Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides ... High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
He Did It All Right!

				

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He Has Good Reason to Worry





Back in February 27, 2022, I submitted a blog post entitled Putin Screws the Pooch. In it, I wrote:







I cannot help but think that Vladimir Putin has made a serious misstep in his assumptions regarding Ukraine’s willingness to abide by his thuggish behavior. The Russians made the same assumptions that Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney made when we invaded Iraq in 2003: We were not in fact welcomed with flowers and candy, and, moreover, we are still there.







Now Putin is in a worse position politically than Nikita Khrushchev was in after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Not only has Putin failed in his attempt to walk all over Ukraine, but he had to put down a quasi-coup by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenaries. 





When one is a totalitarian dictator, one cannot afford to look weak. And Vladimir Putin at this time looks a lot weaker than Khrushchev did in 1964 when Brezhnev and Kosygin replaced him as top dog of the Soviet Union.





And how can you be top dog when you’ve screwed the pooch like Putin has?

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
Back to O’ahu

				

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Martine by a Banyan Tree in Kapi’olani Regional Park





This fall, Martine and I are returning to Honolulu. If I had my druthers, I would prefer tracking down obscure Maya ruins in Yucatán, but if I did, I would have to do it alone. And I am getting to an age where that is becoming a bit on the dangerous side for me. Also, as I enjoy traveling with Martine to places that she likes, it adds an extra level of enjoyment for me.





Last year, we concentrated our efforts visiting the Iolani Palace, the Bishop Museum, the Zoo, the Aquarium, and the Foster Botanical Garden. This time, we could visit Queen Emma’s Summer Palace, the Lyons Botanical Garden, the military museum at Fort DeRussy (Martine worked for years as a civilian Army employee), and any number of other places—possibly including another visit to the ethnological riches of the Bishop Museum.





Tomorrow morning, Martine and I will drive down to the Auto Club in Culver City and pick a flight and hotel. I wouldn’t mind staying at the Malia again, even though it is no longer owned by Outrigger Hotels. The area of Waikiki around Kuhio Avenue and Lewers Street may be a few blocks from the beach; but as we are not beach people, we don’t mind. It is right by the bus stop at that intersection which will take us anywhere we want to go.





We still have our HOLO senior ride discount cards for the Honolulu bus system. We just have to add a few dollars of stored value to our cards. That way we can avoid the expense of renting a car and paying big bucks to garage it at our hotel.

			

	
	



				
					


	


		
		
The Master

				

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Gautama Buddha





The following is a section from the Shambhala Pocket Classics edition of Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha as translated by Thomas Byrom. It is called “The Master.”





At the end of the way
The master finds freedom
From desire and sorrow—
Freedom without bounds.

Those who awaken
Never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise
And leave the lake.

On the air they rise
And fly an invisible course,
Gathering nothing, storing nothing.
Their food is knowledge.
They live upon emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.

Who can follow them?
Only the master.
Such is his purity.

Like a bird,
He rises on the limitless air
And flies an invisible course.
He wishes for nothing.
His food is knowledge.
He lives upon emptiness.
He has broken free.

He is the charioteer.
He has tamed his horses,
Pride and the senses.
Even the gods admire him.

Yielding like the earth,
Joyous and clear like the lake,
Still as a stone at the door,
He is free from life and death.

His thoughts are still.
His words are still.
His work is stillness.
He sees his freedom and is free.

The master surrenders his beliefs.
He sees beyond the end and the beginning.

He cuts all ties.
He gives up all his desires.
He resists all temptations.
And he rises.

And wherever he lives,
In the city or in the country,
In the valley or in the hills,
There is great joy.

Even in the empty forest
He finds joy 
Because he wants nothing.