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Chill Winds Still Blow, by Alexander Pushkin

14-Jun-10

A literal translation of the poem mentioned so often in The Brothers Karamazov, source of the phrase “sticky little leaves.”  Translation by Stephen Boykewich.

The cold winds are still blowing
And carrying the morning frost.
The first little flowers
Have just appeared through the spring thaw holes,
As though from some miraculous, waxy kingdom,
The first bee has flown out
Of its fragrant honeyed cell,
Flying among the early flowers
To explore the red spring a bit.
Will my dear guest be here soon?
Will the meadows soon turn green?
Will the sticky little leaves
Soon blossom from the fleecy birch?
Will the fragrant chokecherry bloom?

А.С. Пушкин

* * *

Еще дуют холодные ветры
И наносят утренни морозы.
Только что на проталинах весенних
Показались ранние цветочки,
Как из чудного царства воскового,
Из душистой келейки медовой
Вылетела первая пчелка,
Полетела по ранним цветочкам
О красной весне поразведать,
Скоро ль будет гостья дорогая,
Скоро ли луга позеленеют,
Скоро ль у кудрявой у березы
Распустятся клейкие листочки,
Зацветет черемуха душиста.
1828

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Punjab Love Festival.

14-Jun-10

Greetings from Richmond Hill, Queens, home of the 2010 Punjab Love Festival.  This poster in a shopfront on Jamaica Avenue caught my eye, but the festival – which offered “free food, free game, unconditional love and more” – had already passed.

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Divine Mercy.

14-Jun-10

Incredible readings in Church today, and relevant to the moment.  The sin of David with Uriah (I must confess I think about this story all the time, since Jung pointed out to me that Uriah is a figure of Christ), Paul’s letter to the Galatians (always amazing), and the following from the Gospel, on the necessity of deeply realized and openly acknowledged sin to truly arrive at the experience of God:

36Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

39When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

40Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

41“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[d] and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

43Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

44Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

48Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

50Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The preacher at St. Ignatius in Manhattan gave a fine (but overly long, of course) sermon on the dangers of Phariseeism in the Church – deeply felt and ever-timely.  This theme recurs so much in the Gospels it must be the main point: the prodigal son, because he has experienced sin and misery, knows God; the eldest son, the perfect one, the lawkeeper, knows only resentment.  A woman guilty of “mortal sin” as a direct result of her sin has the love that others do not have.  “Oh happy fault!  O necessary sin, that merited so great a redeemer!”

So amazing.  All we have to do as a Church is practice what we preach, and attempt to put into practice what is already in the lectionaries.

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FIFA.

14-Jun-10

My favorite thing about World Cup season is having to listen to people who decry the homogenization of the world, destruction of diversity, and conformity of consumerist culture complain that it’s embarrassing to them that the United States doesn’t like a sport that everyone else likes.

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Merton.

11-Jun-10

Now looking at a book by Merton.  Everyone tells me I should be into Merton.  But I find him careless with words – so many of them, I find myself skipping them and flipping to the back of the book to see how many more I have to read – and then he sets up oppositions which I cannot understand.  Here I’m just a few pages into this book, and he has to attack cities:

Instead of waking up and silently existing, the city people prefer a stubborn and fabricated dream; they do not care to be a part of the night, or to be merely of the world.  They have constructed a world outside the world, against the world, a world of mechanical fictions which contemn nature and seek only to use it up, thus preventing itself from renewing itself and man.

Bosh.  Do we really need to listen to a man sitting in a cabin complaining about cities?  What fool does not know that a well-built city is one of the wonders of nature?  Everyone has their weak point, their spot where they cannot thank God for making certain things; but religious people are supposed to know better and edit these thoughts out when they make them public.  Religious people are supposed to know that God made people who live in cities too.  Indeed the image of religious fulfillment is a city.  I for one have never seen why people cannot love cities and nature both.

Anyway, I will let Merton write and I will read it, but these oppositions are all in his mind.

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Lead Us Not Into Penn Station.

11-Jun-10
Penn Station, then.

Penn Station, then.

Lots of reading getting done here.  One book I read last week was Jill Jonnes’ Conquering Gotham, about the construction of Penn Station (ugh these titles; can’t we just call it “The Building of Penn Station”?).  The book makes a good read for the NYC enthusiast; part of the pleasure is deepening one’s knowledge of the place.  All living is a form of truce with ignorance; I spent two summers working in Penn Station without even knowing why it’s called Penn Station.  Now I have in my head a fairly good set of stories about the place, including the (fabulous) engineering story of getting tunnels built through Hudson River silt (human beings are utterly ingenious), the (fabulous) architectural design of Charles McKim (and the bizarre behavior of his partner Stanford White who was murdered by a jealous husband while the station was being built).  Most impressive to me was the portrait of the president of the Pennsylvania Rail Road, Alexander Cassatt, who appears to have been a combination of competence so unusual it must be called brilliance, and nobility of means and purpose, perfectly embodied by the building he left behind.  Cassatt’s confrontations with Tammany leaders, competing robber barons (including Vanderbilt, Morgan, Frick, Gould, et al.), and major politicians (including his friend Roosevelt) form interesting studies in the relative effectiveness of good and evil tactics (Cassatt did not always win, of course).

But he did in the end achieve a Roman deed, connecting New York City to points West by a railroad, and building the world’s greatest terminal in its greatest city.

Of course this story would have been told ten times over to all NYC schoolchildren, were it not for the fact that the monument Cassatt left us we destroyed.  It lives only in photographs.  The iconic image of our own violent destruction of our own culture – the broken statues and columns of Penn Station strewn about the Meadowlands as landfill – is apparently so iconic the photographer makes sure you can’t find it on the web.  The story is here.

It is always useful to contrast what rich Americans did not long ago – for greed and profit, of course, but they had other motives as well – Penn Station is an example – and what rich Americans do now.  The economic impulse has really gotten the better of all the other motivations.  Time to stop requiring Econ 101 for these rich kiddies and make them learn Latin again, eh?

Penn Station now. If rich people aren't going to provide us with culture, beauty, and grandeur anymore, why don't we just get rid of them?

Penn Station now. If rich people aren't going to provide beauty, culture, and grandeur to society, do we really need them anymore?

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Kerouac, the unideal husband.

11-Jun-10

Kerouac’s first marriage: he married a girl and moved out to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and worked at his father-in-law’s ball-bearings factory.  It lasted two months:

At home Edie and her mother, anxious to see Jack as a competent husband, were alarmed that he spent most of his free time in the bathroom, reading Shakespeare and the Bible.

From Paul Maher’s Kerouac, His Life and Work, which appears to be the proper biography of the man – based on actual research, rather than Beatnik hagiography and self-tripping, like many of the Kerouac books.

I find Kerouac utterly dismal as a life, but lovable as a man in a way that transcends all reason.  No one seemed less capable of steering his own life towards happiness.  Even his artistic thoughts were really all wrong, once he finished the On the Road scroll (which is astonishing).  But the zest, the passion, the locking himself in the bathroom to read the Bible, the long debates over the meaning of Spengler and Dostoevsky (probably the two most important thinkers in my life too) – it’s just fabulous.    And the prosaic horror of it all, the inability to master the practical details of life, the poverty, the broken relationships, the hangovers that came like clockwork after every intoxicating happiness – it is terrifying.

The crucial period of his life – his early twenties when he wrote On the Road – was spent in Richmond Hill, where I am now; and there is actually something about the place, I think, which embodies the polarities of Kerouac’s life: Richmond Hill is a comfortable place to launch into the profundities, and to dive into New York City, but it is for the most part very quotidian and normal.  To a certain kind of personality this bland oasis only enhances visions of the desert of weirdness that surrounds it.  Part of the magic of On the Road is that all the adventures start at the doorstep of home, with mom in the kitchen and the ballgame on.

I know I have to write about this more fully, and hopefully this essay will coalesce soon.  I read the biography to set it fermenting in my head.

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Saint Paul.

11-Jun-10

Still so explosive a religious figure.  “Beyond good and evil,” really – Paul’s message, if understood and preached, could gobble up Nietzsche, and relativism, and modern amorality, and the like, rather than running away from it.  “No one robs the strong man’s house, without first tying up the strong man.”

He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.[d]

16Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

20Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

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Physicality.

11-Jun-10

Wracked with pains the past couple of nights, apparently from overworking my body.  I am mystified to report that after two years in the woods my body appears to be more fragile rather than less; I had hoped for rather the opposite.  I suppose I may attribute it to aging.

It is a shame how we discover our bodies when it is beginning to be too late.  At age twenty I considered all physical labor – even perhaps all physical existence – a waste and a comedown for a spiritual creature.  Now I wish I had climbed mountains, built things, acquired muscle, known sweat and wind and sun, swam in all the rivers and hiked all the trails.  I could have done it – but my desire was not great enough.  Now I find my desire increased, but my capacity diminished.

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A Walk In the Woods.

08-Jun-10

About six weeks ago, I walked along on old woods road, out of sight of any man or building, and on my return to the main road, was met by two police officers, one of whom carried an M-16.  They knew my name and where I lived, and were looking for me.  Apparently the owner of the property at the end of the main road called them in because of my truck parked at the end of the road.

I informed the police officers that I had gone for a walk in the woods for love of them, and I consented to a search of my person and my vehicle, to make it clear that I was not intending on poaching on Department of Environmental Protection land (illegal hunting is one of the main concerns of the DEP police).  They took my pocketknife from me (though later did return it).  I also explained that I believed the road was used as a snowmobile trail during the winter, and hence was used for recreational purposes, and I had not entered the woods believing I was doing anything illegal.  I was given a summons.

Later I was arraigned for trespass, and last night I had the trial.  I was nervous; I was not going to hire a lawyer, which would be more expensive than any possible fine; of course the prospect of representing myself was a challenge.  The judge called me up and read a letter from the officer, asking that the charges be dropped “in the interest of justice.”  I did not ask if this was the officer’s conscience or convenience speaking – perhaps he did not want to bother with going to court to testify in so small a matter (he could choose not to show, though I could not) – I was merely relieved that the case of “the people of the State of New York vs. John Kuhner” had been resolved.  The charges were dropped and I walked out of the court.

It is worth thinking about, that this is the kind of society we are creating.  I know that the officer felt, the entire time, that what he was doing was in some way bogus; that he knew I was no threat, and that the law was not meant to harass people who walk in the woods.  And yet he did what he did, and gave me six weeks of legal worry.  The end result?  Fear on my part, of walking God’s earth for fear of offending the Law.

The episode is pure Thoreau, and I will let him finish the thought:

“It is true, we as yet take liberties and go across lots in most directions, but we naturally take fewer and fewer liberties every year, as we meet with more resistance.”

[Later, on the 4th of July, the same police officer drove up to my house and issued me another summons.  Apparently the landowner had not called the cops; the cops had found my car themselves, and later got in touch with the landowner.  Now that the city was dropping charges, he was pressing for a prosecution.  (I had apparently walked through two properties on my hike.)  I was summoned to court again, for a second trial.  I complained to the Town Justice – I had already gone to court for this, I said – but she said, (her words), “If you trespass in a church and a Walmart on the same day, those are two separate offenses.”  So I went back to court for the third (arraignment) and fourth (trial) time for this one spring Sunday hike.  For the trial result, see here, and a description of the trial here.]

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