Wordless Wednesday: Dream Tableau

From Jul 8, 2011

Peering through the window of an antiques shop in Wilmington, North Carolina, I met this little fellow doing all he could do drum up business.  I turned around, then, and my daughter and I were regaled with stories of how offshore wind power would save the free world from strip mining.  I didn't quite buy the biz that windmills would create artificial reefs that would be good for marine life.  Nor did I hear much about the effect these things would have on sea turtles, whose built-in GPS systems are the result of 120 million years of evolution and don't deserve to be the victim of our hubris in the form of electromagnetic fields given off by these pylons.  I think the power outages caused by tornadoes and hurricanes and even earthquakes should remind us we can get along without the stuff and cause us to rethink the justifications we come up with to tear up the natural world to make "the stuff" possible.

Wordless Wednesday

Header Challenge: Space Race

Space Race as a proper noun refers to the competition between the US and the USSR during the Cold War to fly to the moon.  Being first would mean being smarter, stronger, mightier.  Exciting stuff.  And then the world went on.

To my way of thinking, space race as a common noun means finding some.  During the summer, the space race at the beach involves getting a decent spot for the blanket before the sand sculptors, hole diggers, and families with their tents/awnings/lawn chairs/bocce sets/fishing poles claim their quarter acre on land and in the water.  (We have to think of those mercenery sharks coming to shore for a free lunch even at the end of a measly hook, and we have to move along....)

I think this space race is best won at night, well after folks have packed up their junk and returned to the comfort of their couches and the familiarity of TV.  Then the beach is yours, the sky and the ocean are wide open to your dreams, and the cool sand seems happy to know you.  I took this soft, blue shot one evening very late when my daughter and I were out walking the perimeter of paradise one last time before bed.

Book Review: 'Devil in the White City'

The Devil in the White City Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

In his notes at the end of his 2004 book Devil in the White City, author Erik Larson says, "The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions."

This juxtaposition shapes this non-fiction work as Larson tells the story of the World's Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World's Fair of 1893) and the killing spree of H. H. Holmes, a psychopath who used the fair to feed his hunger to kill.

The White City is what the poet Carl Sandberg called "the hog butcher of the world," Chicago. Specifically, it is the grounds of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, a wasteland that the Chicago architecht David Burnham and the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead turned into a vision of beautiful urban life. Here was a place (spray-painted white, hence the name) that gave birth to the incandescent light, Juicy Fruit chewing gum, shredded wheat, and more amid a neo-classical architectural wonderland that offered up the marvels of cultures from around the world. On top of that, it offered the newly-minted Ferris wheel, the brainchild of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, iron inspector George Ferris, who sought to out-Eiffel the designer of the Eiffel Tower, whose steel tower of steel surpassed the wild imaginings of even the most innovated American engineer of the time at the previous world's fair in Paris.

At the same time the planned city was emerging on the shore of Lake Michigan and allowing Americans to glimpse urban life as an aesthetically pleasing experience rather than a utilitarian hell, H. H. Holmes was piggy-backing on these developments to swindle men and seduce women out of his perverse craving for power. His story is as gruesome as it is evil. His fastidious exterior and his calculating mind allowed him to pursue his dark ends for years and at the expense of many lives. Ironically, as Burnham and his colleagues sought to raise tall buildings and elevate them as works of art, Holmes was building a dark castle that descended into the earth in a random, dark assemblage of windowless rooms, airtight vaults, and a gas chamber.

Holmes is not the only dark character in this book that reads like a novel as it describes the tug-of-war between artists, engineers, politicians, and laborers to be spectacular, but he is the darkest. The Chicago World's Fair was a marvel and a pleasure that came at tremendous expense. It rose on the shoulders of ordinary people in a relatively young country that accepted risk as a necessary part of progress. The Holmes story stands out in this landscape because he was not ordinary but exceptional. In the end, justice came to Holmes. And the world went on.

Larson's exploration of "men and their ambition" is a rich, compelling read.

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Our World Tuesday: Sneads Ferry, North Carolina

From Jul 7, 2011

The above photo captures what I think is an exquisite example of multi-tasking.  Isn't it about time someone thought of bringing entertainment into the laundromat? 

From Jul 14, 2011

Here again, multi-tasking where you need it most--at the water.  Just so long as they don't put the night crawlers in the same cooler as the marinated olives and such!

From July 22, 2011

Rounding the corner in this little village and business moves from one form of fishing to another.  We had passed one church's bulletin board that warned, "God lets you get away with it until suddenly...." (Really.  This had my daughter wondering out loud, "Who'd want to go in there?"  No answer came from the person getting away with things in the front seat!)  Then we came across this one, above.  We didn't stick around long enough to put the window down.  Truly, a drive-by.

From July 22, 2011

Here's another church that takes a gentler approach in its marketing.  Still, if I had to take my choice, I'll take my comfort in the sports bar, where I can get my laundry done, too.

From July 22, 2011

Preparing this post as Hurricane Irene has her way with the East Coast, I am also listening to the televised reporting of the storm.  There's a general acceptance that we are helpless at times like these and can only sit tight and take care of each other.  The waters will calm, and we'll be back out there again.  And nothing will be the same.

Our World Tuesday

Good Night, Irene

From After Hurricane Irene in Woodbury, Connecticut, August 28, 2011

Thanks to everyone who sent messages of concern as we stood in line to take our punishment from Hurricane Irene.  Though Irene claimed one life in Connecticut, her reputation had more of an impact than she did around here.  After lunch, the sun came out, and I went for a walk to see what was going on out there.  Our governor had closed the roads during the storm, and the feeling of being under house arrest (even for my own good) got to be onerous.  So out I went to discover lots of water.  The water that streams from our pond usually supplies the swamp across the road with just enough water to keep the pond lilies happy.  Today, the swamp got a little more than it bargained for.

From After Hurricane Irene in Woodbury, Connecticut, August 28, 2011

The roar of water flowing off the hill and into the pond that fed this wild stream had me fascinated.  I stood and watched until the stench of decaying organic matter stirred up by this raging stream got the best of me.  It was like low tide for landlubbers.  I noticed this wildflower doing its wildflower thing right over that water and thought, that's the way to be.  Everything will settle down.

Today's Flowers: Buggin'

From August 24, 2011

The ubiquitous helianthus was enjoying that weird soft light of a late August morning, when the haze seem to cast its own shadow over everything. This one was breakfast for one little fly.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Wheat

From Jul 11, 2011

A crusty loaf just out of the oven,The dawn splits open.
From the soft center, the sun rises.

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Solitude

From August 14, 2011

“Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.” (Thomas Merton)
Skywatch Friday

My World Tuesday: The Beat Goes On

Sylvia and I are working together to continue My World Tuesday because so many people from around the world have expressed a desire to continue this worthwhile meme.  In response to some suggestions from a few different corners of the world, we are calling it Our World Tuesday.  We've created a rudimentary Blogger blog and set up an Inlinkz account.

We teachers are all about collaboration and group projects, so folks who want to create banners, badges, FB accounts, and guest posts need only let us know.  This is about all of us, after all.  So bring it on.

Klaus, thanks for the inspiration.

Wordless Wednesday: Ghosts

From August 20, 2011

Wordless Wednesday

Header Challenge: Landfill

From August 21, 2011

Stewart's header challenge of the week is "landfill." Driving through Virginia and Pennsylvania the other day, Adella and I rolled past plenty of landfills parading as gentle, grassy hills abutting the interstates. The scenery was bucolic in every way but aroma. Egads. Some landscapes really do need "Excuse me!" billboards mounted on them. I probably drove my fastest through these grass-strewn garbage dunes.

They brought to mind the landfill in New Milford, Connecticut, where I worked as a reporter many years ago. At the time, the landfill seemed to be the highest point in that hilly town. When it was retired, its creators--Waste Management--suggested it would make a lovely golf course with a little grass seed and a few pipes to channel the methane gas.

Closer to home--I mean heart--my daughter and I discovered a make-shift landfill alongside a turtle nest on North Topsail Beach. Some local geniuses buried 18 empty beer bottles right alongside the thing. The sand-filled bottles were in the original carton. I was intrigued by the amount of effort that someone put into desecrating the landscape when the garbage can was a whole, oh, 40 feet away. Della and I dug out the bottles and threw them away. (To be fair, I suppose 40 feet might as well be 40 miles to a person with 18 bottles of beer in him or her.)

(Surreal and strange: While we were moving this litter, a woman photographed her son in front of the nest alongside the recently unearthed empties. The duo returned to the child's father, who was fishing, after crossing in front of us with our arms full of litter. It struck me as odd that they saw the wonder of the turtle nest but felt no compunction to protect the integrity of those babies' environment.)

Book Review: 'In the Garden of Beasts'

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin is the story of US Ambassador William Dodd and his family in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power and his rampart militarization and "coordination" of Germany.

At the same time Dodd sought to be a beacon of American democracy and reason in Hitler's irrational, paranoid, increasingly brutal Germany, his daughter Martha sought to make a name for herself as a socialite and thinker. The girl got around. Even as she moved through intellectual circles, she found plenty of time to socialize with the head of the Gestapo, Hitler's favorite pianist, a Russian spy, and others.

She was as busy as her father was staid. Slow to react to acts of racist brutality or even call them for what they were lest Germany default on its debts to the US. Father and daughter each piqued the State Department for not quite playing by the rules of the diplomatic game, the primary ones being to keep the money flowing, party often and much, and offend nobody--even if they are ramping up their eugenics, undermining individual liberties, and pounding on your own country's citizens.

In the end, Dodd held his ground and spoke against Hitler and the fellow maniacs he deputized to serve his megalomania. He said too little too late but nevertheless embarrassed the State Department.

It would be easy to dismiss Dodd and the US government for taking so long to take a stand against the Nazis. There was a commonly held belief among many that a strong response from a powerful nation or two might have checked Hitler's rise to absolute power in Germany and his attempt to conquer Europe. However, Larson's depiction of the players involved and that greatest of handicaps--the irrational desire to believe people are good--shows how complicated and convoluted the obvious can become.

The Garden of Beasts of the title refers to the inner city park in Berlin, the Tiergarten, which used to be a game park for German nobility. In Dodd's time, it was the one place in Berlin where diplomats and others could talk without the fear of eavesdroppers. It was also the park around which the Gestapo, the German Army, and other agents of state brutality were based. The image of the Tiergarten captures the atmosphere of the book--when pure evil closed in on every good thing and vanquished it. For a time.

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My World: The New Hanover County Arboretum

From August 18, 2011

From August 18, 2011

From August 18, 2011

From August 18, 2011

From August 18, 2011

With that in mind, here are a few photos from the New Hanover County Arboretum in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Adella and I stopped by there last week to see what was in bloom and how the Japanese garden was coming along.  We managed to take in most of it in our own sweet time before the skies opened up and gave everything a good rinsing off.

(The other hosts of My World Tuesday have decided to end the meme because its creator, Klaus Peter, has passed away, and they felt closing the meme was a show of respect for Klaus. Nevertheless, I feel inclined to continue to continue looking for the extraordinary in the world around me and sharing it here.  Klaus was an inspiration, and I don't feel inclined to hide that light under a basket.)

Today's Flowers: Arose

From August 18, 2011

Here is a rose I came across at the New Hanover County Arboretum in Wilmington, North Carolina, last week with my daughter.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. (Dale Carnegie)

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Obsession

From August 20, 2011

Early on in the season
I couldn't walk within a quarter mile
Of this pristine priest of the marsh
Without his scolding me in a foreign language
And flying up and around the osprey nest and the neighbor's house
In a great show of saintly indignation.

Months later, I come within feet of this character,
My worn flip-flops clopping along on the pavement
My fingers fumbling with the ringing phone I will not answer.
 (Not here. Not now. Not before his holiness.)

But it doesn't matter.He doesn't bother about me anymore.

I could be any other rock or tree, turtle or deer.
I am a part of the landscape now,
Not a ripple across the smooth surface of mystery
But a part of it.

(Topsail Island is my obsession, as any visitor to this blog well knows.  The great white herons there make for a magical sight.  Getting by them without causing a disturbance makes for an incredible challenge.  The other day, my daughter headed out with my DSLR around her necks and took a pile of photos of this guy performing his morning ablutions.  I am amazed she got so many shots without his taking umbrage and flying off.  I guess he waited until she left before he donned his shower cap and finished the job!)
One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Yet Another Morning

From August 13, 2011

Welcome to the world of Yet Another. Stay as long as you want.

Klaus, rest in peace. And thank you.

Skywatch Friday

Header Challenge: Falling

This is what the sky looks like when rain is falling in the distance.

From August 14, 2011

When the sky looks like this, go inside and wait awhile before heading out unless you want to put yourself and your clothing through the rinse and spin cycles one more time. 

From August 14, 2011

And your camera.  My trusty Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS that fits so neatly in my pocket took some lovely shots before Adella and I faced a near drowning on Sunday after supper.  On the race home, Della lost a flip-flop and hop-skipped her way home between lightning bolts.  It was all very dramatic.  Still, we survived, and there's no sense dwelling on the past.  In the photo above, you can see rain on my lens as well as the white rain sheeting in the background.

From August 14, 2011

Did I mention my Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS is an awesome little machine?  After I documented our Survival of the Deluge, I wiped it off and put it near a warm light and gave it a day or two and, lo, it came back to life.  The little camera is indestructible.  It has put up with no end of sand and grime and water and salt and then tolerated my powering it up and down and smacking it on the palm of my hand to make it go again.  Through these summer-long rigors, I charged the battery exactly once--and only to be careful, not because it showed any signs of wearing down.  Before its two days in intensive care, it took this picture of me and my girl, giddy with delight that we weren't drowned or electrocuted, under my parents' porch.  Canon, you rock.

Wordless Wednesday: Turtle Tracks

From August 10, 2011

Here you'll see the tracks of two turtles who left the nest well after their 97 siblings on August 9. God bless them. I hope they have made their way to the sargassum and are enjoying a pleasant journey on the Gulf Stream.

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: The Analysis

Klaus Peter, who founded My World Tuesday, has passed away.  The meme's home page, That's My World, is dedicated to Klaus this week. The title on his blog this week is Thou Shalt Not Pass which is a beautiful memorial shot to him. Klaus loved the natural world very much and was an exceptional photographer of birds in the wild.  He brought a lot of people together through this meme.  I am grateful to him, and my thoughts are with his family and friends.

This ghost crab hole near a turtle nest is an upsetting sight. Still, nature is at work.....

From August 13, 2011

Next to this nest that has not hatched is the one that did on Tuesday, August 9, which hatching I had the privelege of witnessing and which hatchlings I had the honor of helping stay on the straight and narrow to the Atlantic. Two days after the hatching came the analysis, when turtle folks dug out the nest two count the shells and unfertilized eggs and look for any potential hatchlings.

From August 13, 2011

Before the analysis began, we noticed crabs had been in the nest and made a meal of what was left of the protein the babies had left behind. We stood by as the work began:

From August 13, 2011

From August 13, 2011

The fertilized egg that did not hatch will be buried down the beach and let be. This guy is on his own:

From August 13, 2011

From August 13, 2011

Perhaps this child will make his or her way to the Gulf Stream under the nest full moon. Godspeed, little turtle.

From August 13, 2011

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Bougainvilla

From August 8, 2011

These flowers come and go, come and go--and they are gorgeous every step of the way.

"Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted." (Deepak Chopra)

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Silence

From August 7, 2011

Between the great one

And the sun:

Silence and surf, silence and sand

(Somewhere in my myriad summer albums, I have a photo of a great white heron in flight. But I can't find it. This herring gull was as close as I could come after a long search. He is pretty great in his own opinion, I am sure....)

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: By Health I Mean the Power....

From August 8, 2011

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with... the earth and the wonders thereof - the sea - the sun. (Katherine Mansfield)

Like this:

Skywatch Friday

Header Challenge: Literature

The header challenge this week is literature, courtesy of Dave.  I think the earliest form of literature would be those drawings on cave walls that described the hunt--which, of course, was a contemplation of man's place in the cosmos and the basic fact that, wherever that is, at the end of the day we need to eat.  Be as sublime as you want; dinner's at 5.

I have always loved graffiti--the artist's claiming of public space to express anything at all.  The immediacy, the passion, the haste all speak to the intensity of feeling, the passion for life coursing through the heart of the writer.  I love, too, that the wall is the wall.  Graffiti is for everyone, not the select few.

Years ago,  I used to drive around hunting for the stuff and taking pictures and talking to the writers.  Some of them resented me for appropriating their art.  That's funny in itself, because weren't they appropriating someone else's property to make their statement?  I did the same but with my camera and reporter's notebook.  Touche.  I think the real point is we are not the sole proprietors of our feelings any more than we are sole proprietors of the art we create.  Knowing that is power.  We can give it all away and be what it will.  We can continue the conversation.  We just can't own it.

The above image is a graffito painted on a legal wall in Bethel, Connecticut, in 1993.  Who did it?  Doesn't matter.  Just spend a minute with the thing.  See the faces?  Fall into this world. See what happens.

Wordless Wednesday: Stature

From August 3, 2011

Wordless Wednesday

Ninety-seven Sea Turtles Hatch on Topsail Tonight

Tonight the sea turtle nest we have been sitting for the past five days hatched, and 97 little loggerheads dragged themselves—one at a time—into the Atlantic under the light of a strong moon that was in the exact right spot for them.

About 60 summer folks lined the sides of the trench leading from the nest to the beach to watch and count. I got to put my hall monitor skills to use, making sure the teenagers had their phones well out of sight and everyone was quiet while making sure the little dudes walked down the hallway and didn’t go AWOL as they left the nest. We nudged any stragglers back on course by pushing the sand a bit and directing a light for them.

 

Typically, it does not take five days for a nest to hatch once it sinks (meaning the sand around the nest shifts because the little guys are moving around and coming out of their shells under what could be two feet of sand). But this nest functioned at its own pace. The little guys came out one or two at a time as if they were on a catwalk displaying the most fashionable way to wear sand on your brand new sciutes and flippers.

Once they got to the bottom of the trench, they had to scoot across a bit of water and then back onto the sand. Dayle, the gentleman who discovered the nest 57 days ago and who had sat it for five days to my four, said they were like water bugs when they made their way across the water, and the little bath seemed to give them renewed energy to finish the walk down the beach and into the water.

We were all feeling pretty good when it was over and we were sure all 97 made it safely into the water. This world is a magical place

Please God, they will make it safely to the Gulf Stream and will grow to continue a 120 million-year-old story.

(For a taste of the Topsail turtle experience, try this video.)

Book Review: 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese's 2009 novel Cutting for Stone is about the effects on destiny of geographic dislocation brought about by political upheavel.

That's according to the author himself, so I'm glad there was no test at the end. I would have failed, because I would have said the book is about karma and grace--specifically grace in time and grace as time.

Set in post-War Addis Adaba and relating the life story of its narrator, Marion Praise Stone, Cutting for Stone is about a man whose life course is redirected by political upheavels as well as the whims of the people around him whom he loves. Those upheavals and whims eventually work together to cause Marion to flee his homeland and resettle in New York, where he works to become a surgeon in the 1980s. While this dislocation shapes his destiny in profound, beautiful, and painful ways, the whims of the people around him do more to influence the shape of his life. Some respond with love and respect; others, with sheer callousness that took my breath away. How he responds to his experience of these events is a measure of his soul as well as of his capacity for love.

Marion is the identical twin of Shiva, and these boys are born to a woman who is a nun who is deeply loved by their father, a brilliant surgeon. How the nun and surgeon meet and work side-by-side for seven years before the birth of the twins remains largely a mystery until the end of the novel. Why the father refuses his sons and runs away from the life he had made in Addis Adaba is another mystery for most of this brilliant novel.

He and Shiva have the good fortune of being raised by Hema, a gynecologist, and Ghosh, a medical doctor, who had worked with their father at the same under-funded struggling hospital that serves the poor in a seemingly forgotten part of the world that is a crossroads of Ethiopian, Italian, Indian, and American culture. Together they endure political upheavals along with the ordinary dramas of girls and boys growing up, feeling loved or not loved enough and coming to terms with the unfairness and cruelty of the sequence of accidents that make a life.

Life can change, Marion remarks, in the time it takes a cat to swipe at a sparrow. That is karma. The way the cat behaves is karma. The way the bird responds is karma. We make it happen. Somehow.

In time and at the right time, answers come, mysteries are solved, and love, like cooling, soothing water, finds its level in Marion's life. The wisdom that makes these things possible comes from the father who walked out on him at his birth, who had carried them from a time before himself, and who brings it back to his son. The aid that is administered through the ear: Words of comfort.

It's a beautiful book, rich and clear and complex and deeply rewarding.

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My World Tuesday: Oyster Sills on Jones Island, North Carolina

From August 2, 2011

Last week I spent a day volunteering with the North Carolina Coastal Federation moving mesh bags of seashells from Jones Island  to its shoreline, creating a sill for oyster larvae to attach themselves to and grow.  The sill is making lots of crabs and fish and other critters happy, too.  The woman to the right of the photo above is Lexia, our cruise director for the day.  We moved all bags here.  (There were 265, but we're not bragging; the Marines were out from Camp LeJeune and moved, oh, 10 times as many in the same amount of time.)

Here is Lexia and a colleague from the Coastal Federation stacking the bags, which were three across and four high. Because the tide was way, way in, they had to feel their way along.

The Federation is also planting sea grasses around the island to restore habitat and some biodiversity around the place.

From August 2, 2011

Nothing went to waste.  The oyster shells (which are very expensive and came from all over the place.) that fell out of the bags were dragged onto the barge and carried out to the water to work their magic.  This took the muscle power of the entire group minus one loafing photographer.

From August 2, 2011

A section of the sill looked quite at home out there.  

Our group consisted of a family from Illinois, the father of which seemed to be all about the Air Force, a retired Marine, a high school guidance counselor, a middle school reading teacher, college interns with the Federation, a local bee keeper and her two girls, and some other folks from near and far in North Carolina who just plain care.  When I got back to base here on Topsail, I decided not to read the paper.  It felt right to dwell in the goodness for a while.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Glorious Morning

From August 2, 2011

I came across this beauty at Hammocks Beach State Park in Swansboro, North Carolina, last Tuesday, where I spent the day working with other volunteers for the North Carolina Coastal Federation to build oyster shell sills along Jones Island.  What a day.  What a park.  This spectacular state park is spotless, inviting, peaceful, gorgeous.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Dream

The osprey sings of the hunt

To her hungry young

And feeds them.

The deer breathes lightly

On the trumpet lilies beneath the osprey nest

And vanishes within.

The turtle stretches his neck

In the direction of the deer

And steps toward the dawn.

Great white egrets step and stare

Step and feast.

The sun rises.

Wind and current engulf me,

Telling me to go, go, go

Deeper.

***

“What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story, And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams”

( Pedro Calderon de la Barca )

One Single Impression

Secrets and Truths

From August 1, 2011

Slow motion rocking
Secrets open, truth unfolds:
Hush, hush, hush, hush, hush

Skywatch Friday: A Quiet Morning Dissolves Into Pure Heat...

From July 31, 2011

...and the shrimpers glide out of Snead's Ferry, the turtle patrollers pick up litter and look for signs of turtle activity, the vactioners pour out of their rentals, and the jellyfish languish in the sand, and the gulls laugh, and laugh, and laugh. 

Skywatch Friday