that B. and I got our flu and covid shots this morning. There was already a long line when we arrived 15 minutes before the clinic opened - possibly it'd have been quieter if we'd arrived in mid-afternoon, though in general Kaiser is usually busier in the afternoon - but when they did open, they scooped up the people with canes and walkers first, as they've done before. What they were not prepared for was the size of the line, as they had only two stations open.
We picked this week so that I'd be covered for people-heavy events I'll be going to in another week and a half, but should still be at strong coverage during the holidays.
Looking over my previous post, it occurs to me that it would have been more coherent if I hadn't written it in late evening when I was about to fall asleep. I'll have to watch my timing.
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Monday, September 30, 2024
Sunday, September 29, 2024
assorted books
Astoria: Astor and Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire, by Peter Stark (HarperCollins, 2015)
Books on the history of US Western exploration usually, after describing Lewis and Clark's journey in great detail, mention briefly that wealthy merchant John Jacob Astor sent a party to establish a fur-trading post, to barter with the natives, at the mouth of the Columbia, the far end of L&C's journey; that they did so, calling it Astoria, but at the outbreak of the war of 1812 a couple years later, they gave in to the threats of the Brits' far stronger navy and sold them their assets, and that was the end of that.*
But you don't hear anything about how Astor's men got there in the first place. This book tells that, in hideous but captivating detail. This was only the second party of whites to cross the continent north of Mexico, and the skill and luck of Lewis & Clark is demonstrated by the terrible time of it these people had, taking nearly two years, including two winters in the wilderness, to get there, losing several people along the way. Meantime, Astor also sent a ship around the Horn, which got there first but also had a terrible time of it, also losing several people along the way. Stark's theory is that, by the time they got there, everyone involved was suffering from PTSD, which is why they were so inert about getting the post set up. Other weird events included the destruction of the ship by a suicide bomber. Yes, in 1811.
The Lede: Dispatches from a Life in the Press, by Calvin Trillin (Random House, 2024)
Not as consistently interesting as Trillin's previous retrospective collection of a half century of journalism, Jackson, 1964, and Other Dispatches, which covers racial issues. This one mixes serious articles with humorous pieces, and the problem is that, in classic New Yorker style (where much of this originally appeared), many of the serious reports are far longer than any possible interest the reader might have in the subject. I guess it depends on your inherent interest, because the one on the rise of the satirical redneck movie reviewer Joe Bob Briggs did not become wearisome. It seemed to me that the trouble with Joe Bob began when the paper didn't take enough care to mark the satire off, for instance mixing Joe Bob's four-star ratings of splatter films with the regular reviewer's two-star ratings of serious films.
*However, the fact that the Americans were able to establish a post there before the British in the first place - the Brits kept finding the wrong rivers when they were trying to float downstream from the upper end of the Columbia in what is now B.C. - plus Lewis and Clark, plus an American ship having made the whites' discovery of the mouth of the Columbia in the first place (which is why the river is called that), contributed to a U.S. claim to the area, which is why Oregon and Washington are U.S. territory today, and there's a town called Astoria on the site of the Astor post. It was because I was going there that I bought this book at Powell's in Portland, though I didn't read it until after I got home.
Books on the history of US Western exploration usually, after describing Lewis and Clark's journey in great detail, mention briefly that wealthy merchant John Jacob Astor sent a party to establish a fur-trading post, to barter with the natives, at the mouth of the Columbia, the far end of L&C's journey; that they did so, calling it Astoria, but at the outbreak of the war of 1812 a couple years later, they gave in to the threats of the Brits' far stronger navy and sold them their assets, and that was the end of that.*
But you don't hear anything about how Astor's men got there in the first place. This book tells that, in hideous but captivating detail. This was only the second party of whites to cross the continent north of Mexico, and the skill and luck of Lewis & Clark is demonstrated by the terrible time of it these people had, taking nearly two years, including two winters in the wilderness, to get there, losing several people along the way. Meantime, Astor also sent a ship around the Horn, which got there first but also had a terrible time of it, also losing several people along the way. Stark's theory is that, by the time they got there, everyone involved was suffering from PTSD, which is why they were so inert about getting the post set up. Other weird events included the destruction of the ship by a suicide bomber. Yes, in 1811.
The Lede: Dispatches from a Life in the Press, by Calvin Trillin (Random House, 2024)
Not as consistently interesting as Trillin's previous retrospective collection of a half century of journalism, Jackson, 1964, and Other Dispatches, which covers racial issues. This one mixes serious articles with humorous pieces, and the problem is that, in classic New Yorker style (where much of this originally appeared), many of the serious reports are far longer than any possible interest the reader might have in the subject. I guess it depends on your inherent interest, because the one on the rise of the satirical redneck movie reviewer Joe Bob Briggs did not become wearisome. It seemed to me that the trouble with Joe Bob began when the paper didn't take enough care to mark the satire off, for instance mixing Joe Bob's four-star ratings of splatter films with the regular reviewer's two-star ratings of serious films.
*However, the fact that the Americans were able to establish a post there before the British in the first place - the Brits kept finding the wrong rivers when they were trying to float downstream from the upper end of the Columbia in what is now B.C. - plus Lewis and Clark, plus an American ship having made the whites' discovery of the mouth of the Columbia in the first place (which is why the river is called that), contributed to a U.S. claim to the area, which is why Oregon and Washington are U.S. territory today, and there's a town called Astoria on the site of the Astor post. It was because I was going there that I bought this book at Powell's in Portland, though I didn't read it until after I got home.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
concert review: San Francisco Symphony
Their first week's concert having been cancelled by a chorus strike, SFS finally put on a regular concert - no chorus this week - Friday evening. Of course, given the cavalier way management has treated the chorus, I expect the orchestra players also to go on strike again (they've done this before) when their contract comes up, but that's not until November, and I don't have any concerts scheduled after next week until January.
Esa-Pekka Salonen - the music director whom management let get away - thus began the subscription concerts of the final season on his contract with this performance. He was greeted by huge audience cheers when he arrived and even huger ones when he was finished, having demonstrated yet again what a loss his departure will be.
The big piece on the program was Hindemith's Mathis der Maler Symphony, which you don't hear very often. Its thematic material consists mostly of unpromising-sounding fragmentary motifs, but a good performance builds them up into a big hefty solemn-sounding work that sounds more compelling than the material making it up. That happened here.
The symphony material is taken from an opera about a 16th-century painter, though there's nothing 16th-centuryish about the music. Somewhat more concrete 20th-century references to earlier music were found in two shorter accompanying pieces. Hindemith's rare Ragtime (Well-Tempered), from his early cheeky period, takes a phrase from a Bach prelude and adapts it into as much raucous noise as an orchestra can generate. Edward Elgar orchestrated Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, which had an integrated texture that made it sound like it was being played on an organ with more different stops than you'd ever heard of.
For another big piece, EPS has commissioned yet another new piano concerto, this one from composer Nico Muhly and written for pianist Alexandre Tharaud, whose album of French Baroque music Muhly had admired. There was supposed to be an air of, but no quotations from, music of that kind in the outer movements, but the music sounded to me more like fast pulsating minimalism of the Steve Reich school. In the slow movement, Tharaud played an endless series of soft diatonic chords, for all the world as if this were by Georgs Pelēcis, while the orchestra steadily built up into a contrasting din around it.
If you want an account of the mess that led to the strike, and the labor/financial situation that SFS is in, a simple but right-headed accounting comes from retired Chronicle reviewer Joshua Kosman; but for the full-throated burn, Kosman suggests the latest (as of now) four posts from this blogger, Emily Hogstad, who isn't even a Californian but is viewing this from Minnesota, but is her gaze ever piercing, informed as it is by their own orchestral troubles a few years back.
My own take is that the only solution here is to dissolve the management and get a new and more level-headed one, while keeping the musicians - nothing wrong with them. That's what they did in San Jose a couple decades back, and things have been fine there since. The big difference is, San Jose was a local orchestra that learned to live within its budget, while SFS is a world-class ensemble that has yet to grasp that to retain that status, they need to pay for the requisite talent instead of trying to run it on the cheap. If they're going to drop back into a regional-level orchestra, which is where they're headed, they should acknowledge that and have a good excuse for it. But if they want to keep on, they need 1) a clearer, less waffling, and more rip-roaring vision, that will attract the donors they say they want; and 2) a willingness in the meantime to dip further into their enormous endowment to keep the coaster running.
Esa-Pekka Salonen - the music director whom management let get away - thus began the subscription concerts of the final season on his contract with this performance. He was greeted by huge audience cheers when he arrived and even huger ones when he was finished, having demonstrated yet again what a loss his departure will be.
The big piece on the program was Hindemith's Mathis der Maler Symphony, which you don't hear very often. Its thematic material consists mostly of unpromising-sounding fragmentary motifs, but a good performance builds them up into a big hefty solemn-sounding work that sounds more compelling than the material making it up. That happened here.
The symphony material is taken from an opera about a 16th-century painter, though there's nothing 16th-centuryish about the music. Somewhat more concrete 20th-century references to earlier music were found in two shorter accompanying pieces. Hindemith's rare Ragtime (Well-Tempered), from his early cheeky period, takes a phrase from a Bach prelude and adapts it into as much raucous noise as an orchestra can generate. Edward Elgar orchestrated Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, which had an integrated texture that made it sound like it was being played on an organ with more different stops than you'd ever heard of.
For another big piece, EPS has commissioned yet another new piano concerto, this one from composer Nico Muhly and written for pianist Alexandre Tharaud, whose album of French Baroque music Muhly had admired. There was supposed to be an air of, but no quotations from, music of that kind in the outer movements, but the music sounded to me more like fast pulsating minimalism of the Steve Reich school. In the slow movement, Tharaud played an endless series of soft diatonic chords, for all the world as if this were by Georgs Pelēcis, while the orchestra steadily built up into a contrasting din around it.
If you want an account of the mess that led to the strike, and the labor/financial situation that SFS is in, a simple but right-headed accounting comes from retired Chronicle reviewer Joshua Kosman; but for the full-throated burn, Kosman suggests the latest (as of now) four posts from this blogger, Emily Hogstad, who isn't even a Californian but is viewing this from Minnesota, but is her gaze ever piercing, informed as it is by their own orchestral troubles a few years back.
My own take is that the only solution here is to dissolve the management and get a new and more level-headed one, while keeping the musicians - nothing wrong with them. That's what they did in San Jose a couple decades back, and things have been fine there since. The big difference is, San Jose was a local orchestra that learned to live within its budget, while SFS is a world-class ensemble that has yet to grasp that to retain that status, they need to pay for the requisite talent instead of trying to run it on the cheap. If they're going to drop back into a regional-level orchestra, which is where they're headed, they should acknowledge that and have a good excuse for it. But if they want to keep on, they need 1) a clearer, less waffling, and more rip-roaring vision, that will attract the donors they say they want; and 2) a willingness in the meantime to dip further into their enormous endowment to keep the coaster running.
Friday, September 27, 2024
research day
I spent Thursday at UC Berkeley, doing research for the Tolkien Studies bibliography, in particular catching PDFs of the articles so that I'll have them handy for the next year's "Year's Work." It was a successful and rewarding day: lots of available indexes, lots of full-text links, easy access for a visitor to the databases, no trouble getting a stack pass for the hardcopy material, and the same brilliantly designed scanners in the stacks that I've found so satisfactory before. The only irritation was the increasing number of articles that say they're about the book but are actually about the movies.
So now that UC Santa Cruz has made on-campus visitor parking permits difficult to obtain (by changing to some ornate online process instead of the old system, which was to drive up to a booth at the entrance to campus and pay them $10), and the one relevant journal that Santa Cruz carries and nobody else around here does is now online, and it's clear to me that Berkeley actually has better access to databases, I think in future I'll come here first, when my home online research is done and it's time to turn to universities.
Of course, Berkeley has no weekday on-campus visitor parking either, at least not that I've been able to figure out, but unlike Santa Cruz it's in the middle of a city, so there's commercial garages, which have space available at least if you get there before noonish.
But it was clear to me, after walking around among three campus libraries as well as venturing off-campus for lunch, that the sort of rushing around that I did as an undergraduate, all those years ago, is no longer in my repertoire.
I had one little scare when my car wouldn't start. Battery wasn't dead but the engine wouldn't respond. It was fine later, so I don't know what went wrong, but in the meantime I called the AAA, though I called back to cancel later. I'd heard that AAA now makes you fill out an online form, which I can't do unless I'm at home, because I don't have That Kind of a mobile phone, but it turns out they only send you there if you answer "yes" to the automated-vocal inquiry, "Are you calling from a mobile phone?" Otherwise they continue to ask you questions by automated voice and then eventually send you to an agent to handle any queries or problems.
So now that UC Santa Cruz has made on-campus visitor parking permits difficult to obtain (by changing to some ornate online process instead of the old system, which was to drive up to a booth at the entrance to campus and pay them $10), and the one relevant journal that Santa Cruz carries and nobody else around here does is now online, and it's clear to me that Berkeley actually has better access to databases, I think in future I'll come here first, when my home online research is done and it's time to turn to universities.
Of course, Berkeley has no weekday on-campus visitor parking either, at least not that I've been able to figure out, but unlike Santa Cruz it's in the middle of a city, so there's commercial garages, which have space available at least if you get there before noonish.
But it was clear to me, after walking around among three campus libraries as well as venturing off-campus for lunch, that the sort of rushing around that I did as an undergraduate, all those years ago, is no longer in my repertoire.
I had one little scare when my car wouldn't start. Battery wasn't dead but the engine wouldn't respond. It was fine later, so I don't know what went wrong, but in the meantime I called the AAA, though I called back to cancel later. I'd heard that AAA now makes you fill out an online form, which I can't do unless I'm at home, because I don't have That Kind of a mobile phone, but it turns out they only send you there if you answer "yes" to the automated-vocal inquiry, "Are you calling from a mobile phone?" Otherwise they continue to ask you questions by automated voice and then eventually send you to an agent to handle any queries or problems.
Thursday, September 26, 2024
voting quiz
My dreams, however vividly recalled at the moment I wake up, tend to crumble into dust over the next few minutes.
All I can recall of this one is that a cancelled debate between Trump and Harris had been replaced with a voter quiz/challenge, items designed by the Trump campaign. If you could accomplish the task/pass the quiz, you could be counted as a vote for Harris ... if you wanted to, I guess. I can't remember how that part worked.
There were five parts. They were:
1. Park your car properly in a Trump-owned parking lot.
2. Answer the question, how far away is the nearest star to the solar system, Alpha Centauri? ("Four light years" would do.)
3. Do you prefer dogs or cats? (Dog people = Trump; cat people = Harris)
... I can't remember the others.
All I can recall of this one is that a cancelled debate between Trump and Harris had been replaced with a voter quiz/challenge, items designed by the Trump campaign. If you could accomplish the task/pass the quiz, you could be counted as a vote for Harris ... if you wanted to, I guess. I can't remember how that part worked.
There were five parts. They were:
1. Park your car properly in a Trump-owned parking lot.
2. Answer the question, how far away is the nearest star to the solar system, Alpha Centauri? ("Four light years" would do.)
3. Do you prefer dogs or cats? (Dog people = Trump; cat people = Harris)
... I can't remember the others.
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
I've outwitted myself
So I want the newly-released 3-volume edition of Tolkien's collected poetry, but I haven't got it.
I don't usually pre-order unpublished books, but I did in this case, a few weeks ago. My first instinct was to support my local independent bookstore, but to my surprise the book was not listed in their online catalog of books available for pre-order. (The Last Dangerous Visions was, and I ordered that.)
So, since that implied they wouldn't be carrying it, I placed my order with Barnes and Noble, figuring it'd get shipped so that it arrived on publication day, the way the Harry Potter books were. US publication day was yesterday, Tuesday. It hasn't arrived. My order status says it's expected to arrive today, but it's also listed as on back order.
So it may not come for some time, despite the order status's promise. Meanwhile, now that the work is published, the independent bookstore now has it, and their online catalog says there's a copy for sale in their local branch.
I could rush down there this morning and buy it, and make the booksellers happy with a big sale (it's over $100), but it's too late to cancel my Barnes & Noble order, even though it hasn't been shipped. I don't want to buy two copies of such a large and expensive work, so I'm stuck. Why didn't the local bookstore have it listed on pre-order?
I don't usually pre-order unpublished books, but I did in this case, a few weeks ago. My first instinct was to support my local independent bookstore, but to my surprise the book was not listed in their online catalog of books available for pre-order. (The Last Dangerous Visions was, and I ordered that.)
So, since that implied they wouldn't be carrying it, I placed my order with Barnes and Noble, figuring it'd get shipped so that it arrived on publication day, the way the Harry Potter books were. US publication day was yesterday, Tuesday. It hasn't arrived. My order status says it's expected to arrive today, but it's also listed as on back order.
So it may not come for some time, despite the order status's promise. Meanwhile, now that the work is published, the independent bookstore now has it, and their online catalog says there's a copy for sale in their local branch.
I could rush down there this morning and buy it, and make the booksellers happy with a big sale (it's over $100), but it's too late to cancel my Barnes & Noble order, even though it hasn't been shipped. I don't want to buy two copies of such a large and expensive work, so I'm stuck. Why didn't the local bookstore have it listed on pre-order?
Monday, September 23, 2024
it concludes with a concert
Saturday I was out for a long round trip that took me to errands in four different places around the Bay Area.
1. Stopping for an early lunch at the Irish pub in Millbrae where our Mythopoeic book discussion group rented their back room last December for our annual festive reading meeting, and to arrange to rent the room again for this year.
2. Up into the City for another visit to the public library for more research on the Tolkien Studies bibliography.
3. Across the Bay to Berkeley for an afternoon invitational gathering in honor of the hostess's Big Round Number birthday. As I entered the room, I saw, seated on the couch beneath the window (so that the light was behind her and I couldn't see her very well), the hostess's daughter, the one who lives at home and had organized the party. She raised her hand in greeting and I acknowledged back. Then Mom, who was seated on the opposite side of the room, said that same daughter could fetch me a drink. I looked into the interior room, and there she was! Puzzled, I looked back to the window, and realized that the one who'd greeted me was the other daughter, the one who lives 2000 miles away and is consequently not often seen. She looks only a bit like her sister, but as I said the light was bad. Her husband and son were there too: it was a festive gathering.
4. And lastly, over the hills to Walnut Creek for my first achieved concert of the season, the California Symphony in the bicentennial bash of Beethoven's Ninth. What a magnificent performance. The orchestra, under music director Donato Cabrera, burst with fervor and intensity. Where did the brass learn to play with such stentorian energy? All three fast movements had craggy vigor, while the slow movement had an unexpected majesty. The chorus, from the SF Conservatory, wobbled in some dicey spots, but had the vocal power necessary. The lead soloist, Sidney Outlaw, sang in a light-toned and lyrical baritone, almost as if he were a tenor, but he too had the carrying power. Of the other soloists, soprano Laquita Mitchell surprised with the intensity of her vocal production.
This was a glorious concert, and I learned something driving to it also. I learned that the electronic signs on the freeway giving the time to various destinations are not to be trusted. In Oakland, it said 15 minutes to Walnut Creek. 15 minutes later, I was still stuck in the traffic jam caused by drivers apparently too cautious to enter the Caldecott Tunnel at speed. This had obviously been going on for some time, but nobody told the signs about it. Next time I need to take this drive, I'll go around on San Pablo Dam Road instead.
1. Stopping for an early lunch at the Irish pub in Millbrae where our Mythopoeic book discussion group rented their back room last December for our annual festive reading meeting, and to arrange to rent the room again for this year.
2. Up into the City for another visit to the public library for more research on the Tolkien Studies bibliography.
3. Across the Bay to Berkeley for an afternoon invitational gathering in honor of the hostess's Big Round Number birthday. As I entered the room, I saw, seated on the couch beneath the window (so that the light was behind her and I couldn't see her very well), the hostess's daughter, the one who lives at home and had organized the party. She raised her hand in greeting and I acknowledged back. Then Mom, who was seated on the opposite side of the room, said that same daughter could fetch me a drink. I looked into the interior room, and there she was! Puzzled, I looked back to the window, and realized that the one who'd greeted me was the other daughter, the one who lives 2000 miles away and is consequently not often seen. She looks only a bit like her sister, but as I said the light was bad. Her husband and son were there too: it was a festive gathering.
4. And lastly, over the hills to Walnut Creek for my first achieved concert of the season, the California Symphony in the bicentennial bash of Beethoven's Ninth. What a magnificent performance. The orchestra, under music director Donato Cabrera, burst with fervor and intensity. Where did the brass learn to play with such stentorian energy? All three fast movements had craggy vigor, while the slow movement had an unexpected majesty. The chorus, from the SF Conservatory, wobbled in some dicey spots, but had the vocal power necessary. The lead soloist, Sidney Outlaw, sang in a light-toned and lyrical baritone, almost as if he were a tenor, but he too had the carrying power. Of the other soloists, soprano Laquita Mitchell surprised with the intensity of her vocal production.
This was a glorious concert, and I learned something driving to it also. I learned that the electronic signs on the freeway giving the time to various destinations are not to be trusted. In Oakland, it said 15 minutes to Walnut Creek. 15 minutes later, I was still stuck in the traffic jam caused by drivers apparently too cautious to enter the Caldecott Tunnel at speed. This had obviously been going on for some time, but nobody told the signs about it. Next time I need to take this drive, I'll go around on San Pablo Dam Road instead.
Friday, September 20, 2024
no concert
The San Francisco Symphony did not open its season last night with a performance of Verdi's Requiem, and I, holding a ticket, was perforce there to not hear it.
I first suspected this was not going to come off when I read the previous day that the union representing the professional part of the symphony chorus had voted to authorize its contract negotiators to call a strike if they thought it necessary.
However, I heard nothing more than that - there was nothing more to hear, it turns out - and, having added a couple more errands to the billet of my trip to the City, I headed up unusually early. The first errand was to exchange tickets for future concerts, and I got to the box office, which is in the lobby of the symphony hall, at about 4:30, just as someone was taping signs to the front doors announcing that tonight's concert had been canceled. Apparently they had just then called the strike.
That figures, I thought, and went in and did the exchange. Then I tromped off two blocks to the main library to do some work on the Tolkien Studies bibliography. While I was there, at about 5:30, B. called my cell to inform me that the Symphony had just called us at home (the number they have) to say the concert was canceled. That's still well over an hour after the last possible time I would have left home for the evening, even if I had had no other errands.
By the time I walked back past the symphony hall, about 6:10, a picket line had been set up, though by that time the box office would be closed on a non-performance night. The picketers were chanting "No chorus, no piece," a rare pun in a labor demonstration. Apparently the orchestral instrumentalists were also out in support, as a lone trombonist was playing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
I set off in search of dinner and then drove home.
I first suspected this was not going to come off when I read the previous day that the union representing the professional part of the symphony chorus had voted to authorize its contract negotiators to call a strike if they thought it necessary.
However, I heard nothing more than that - there was nothing more to hear, it turns out - and, having added a couple more errands to the billet of my trip to the City, I headed up unusually early. The first errand was to exchange tickets for future concerts, and I got to the box office, which is in the lobby of the symphony hall, at about 4:30, just as someone was taping signs to the front doors announcing that tonight's concert had been canceled. Apparently they had just then called the strike.
That figures, I thought, and went in and did the exchange. Then I tromped off two blocks to the main library to do some work on the Tolkien Studies bibliography. While I was there, at about 5:30, B. called my cell to inform me that the Symphony had just called us at home (the number they have) to say the concert was canceled. That's still well over an hour after the last possible time I would have left home for the evening, even if I had had no other errands.
By the time I walked back past the symphony hall, about 6:10, a picket line had been set up, though by that time the box office would be closed on a non-performance night. The picketers were chanting "No chorus, no piece," a rare pun in a labor demonstration. Apparently the orchestral instrumentalists were also out in support, as a lone trombonist was playing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
I set off in search of dinner and then drove home.
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
books from the Lewis conference
George Fox University, where the conference was held, is a small campus with an even smaller bookstore. A single room with not much but textbooks and campus-themed clothing, it did put out a table filled with plenty of copies of special-ordered books by conference presenters. A few more books drifted in on the second day of the conference, but more of them, though promised and expected, did not appear before the end of the event
Most of the books on display I already had, but there was one new one I eagerly purchased, and one of the non-arrivals I simply ordered online after I got home.
Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway (Word on Fire, 2023)
Some readers - fewer these days than formerly - are unaware that there's a Catholic dimension to The Lord of the Rings at all. Some writers - more these days than formerly - are Catholic enthusiasts practicing landsmanship on Tolkien and claiming The Lord of the Rings as a Catholic allegory dripping with intentional religious symbolism in a C.S. Lewis mode.
Both these ideas are misled. Ordway is trying to steer a course between Scylla and Charybdis here; I detected as much from the first chapter and, having read that far, wished the author good luck at it when I met her at the conference. In the end, she'll succeed if readers attend closely to what she's saying, which they don't always do, cf the consistent misreadings of Christopher Milne's memoir.
This is a full biography of Tolkien: it's very long (365 pages in main text) and covering his whole life in detail, but only in its religious and spiritual aspects. There's nothing beyond a few context-providing sentences about his academic life or scholarly work, his World War I service, or even the writing of his fiction. The last, mostly LR, makes scattered appearances to show only how Tolkien's deep religiosity informed his creative thinking. Thus Galadriel obviously resembles Mary in aspects, but in the farewell scene her words echo Christ at the Last Supper, so there's that aspect too. Ordway's conclusion is that Tolkien's characters are not allegories of Christianity but types of Christ or other figures, in imitation of Christ as Thomas à Kempis put it: an observation first made in regard to Tolkien by Gracia Fay Ellwood in 1966, so Ordway is on solid ground here.
The book's major focus is on placing Tolkien's faith in context. So when Ordway says that Tolkien liked to say particular prayers, she goes into detail on exactly what those prayers say and what it meant to a Catholic believer in Tolkien's day. There's an appendix with the full texts of the prayers in Latin (which Tolkien used in prayer, even after the vernacular reforms) and English. There's a whole sequence of biographical paragraphs on the priests of the Birmingham Oratory whom Tolkien would have known when he was receiving his childhood religious training there. There's even longer discussions of saints Tolkien especially venerated, and of the godparents of all of his children - a significant clue as to what was important to their parents. There's physical descriptions of the churches Tolkien attended, noting that the old churches in England had all been claimed by the Anglicans, and that most Catholic churches were drab functional buildings, sometimes claimed from other uses, until new ones of better aesthetic quality were built.
Despite all this detail, Ordway assumes that the reader knows absolutely nothing. She explains what the Old Testament is. She even explains what Christianity is. This smoothly blends into discussions of the anti-Catholic environment of England at the time, as reflected in those makeshift churches. She notes, which I think previous biographers have not, that Tolkien was initially one of only four Catholic professors at Oxford, and that the four of them carried the sacred canopy in the first Catholic procession in Oxford for centuries in 1934.
All of this works very well. Yet it doesn't always do so. Some reviews have called this book a hagiography, despite Ordway's specific denial; I wonder if anyone making that charge has ever seen an actual hagiography. But there is a tendency to skim over or argue against negative aspects. That Tolkien came close to lapsing from his faith in early adulthood, and that his wife was at times resentful that he'd made her convert, are mentioned, but there's very little detail on these. Perhaps there's none to be had, though in other respects Ordway is a remarkably diligent researcher.
More serious is the case of a chapter on Tolkien's racial views, which is mostly about his opposition to anti-Semitism and on the reflection of the Jews in the Dwarves. This reflection is framed as complimentary, so there's nothing about how the Dwarves in the earlier legendarium are basically evil. It's also unconscionable at this late date to discuss Tolkien and racism without noting his reflexive acceptance of negative stereotypes about Asian peoples and their reflection in the Orcs.
Later on, there's a rather strained and desperate argument that Tolkien wasn't really as much opposed to the reforms of Vatican II as he's usually depicted, and an even more strained and desperate argument that Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis wasn't really as anti-Catholic as he's usually depicted. Lewis combined deep personal friendship with individual Catholics with a reflexive anti-Catholic general attitude that often pained Tolkien and which probably descended from Lewis's Ulster Protestant childhood. This makes Lewis a perfect example of why "Some of my best friends are X" is a worthless defense of oneself against charges of prejudice.
I finished this book less happy with it than I'd been halfway through.
C.S. Lewis's Oxford by Simon Horobin (Bodleian Library, 2024)
I was especially anxious to read this detailed account of Lewis in Oxford, because I wondered what it would say about the Inklings. Many writers tend to jump to unwarranted conclusions about the history of this poorly-documented group. Horobin doesn't. He lays out the known facts, and doesn't speculate beyond them.
This is a marvelously researched book, delving into plenty of detail, particularly uncovering material about Lewis's interaction with his tutorial pupils from his comments on their essays, preserved in his papers in the Bodleian - something I can't recall seeing previous writers do. He's also wise and judicious on the dicey matter of Mrs. Moore.
The Inklings chapter does not reveal anything new, but at least it sticks to what is known. I was particularly pleased with lines like "Although Thursday-night meetings petered out at the end of the 1940s," because that's exactly how much is certainly known, no more. It's so reliable that two tiny errors stood out glaringly. Horobin calls the Cretaceous Perambulators, Lewis's walking group, "a subset of the Inklings," which they were not: the overlap between the groups was minimal. And he writes of "one August evening in 1940, when the group met at Tolkien's home." In fact, as is shown elsewhere in the letter by Lewis that Horobin quotes from (offering Lewis's paraphrase of Tolkien as Tolkien's words), Lewis and Havard going to Tolkien's home was a substitute for a meeting not held because nobody else (including Tolkien) could come to Lewis's college rooms that evening.
Most of the books on display I already had, but there was one new one I eagerly purchased, and one of the non-arrivals I simply ordered online after I got home.
Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway (Word on Fire, 2023)
Some readers - fewer these days than formerly - are unaware that there's a Catholic dimension to The Lord of the Rings at all. Some writers - more these days than formerly - are Catholic enthusiasts practicing landsmanship on Tolkien and claiming The Lord of the Rings as a Catholic allegory dripping with intentional religious symbolism in a C.S. Lewis mode.
Both these ideas are misled. Ordway is trying to steer a course between Scylla and Charybdis here; I detected as much from the first chapter and, having read that far, wished the author good luck at it when I met her at the conference. In the end, she'll succeed if readers attend closely to what she's saying, which they don't always do, cf the consistent misreadings of Christopher Milne's memoir.
This is a full biography of Tolkien: it's very long (365 pages in main text) and covering his whole life in detail, but only in its religious and spiritual aspects. There's nothing beyond a few context-providing sentences about his academic life or scholarly work, his World War I service, or even the writing of his fiction. The last, mostly LR, makes scattered appearances to show only how Tolkien's deep religiosity informed his creative thinking. Thus Galadriel obviously resembles Mary in aspects, but in the farewell scene her words echo Christ at the Last Supper, so there's that aspect too. Ordway's conclusion is that Tolkien's characters are not allegories of Christianity but types of Christ or other figures, in imitation of Christ as Thomas à Kempis put it: an observation first made in regard to Tolkien by Gracia Fay Ellwood in 1966, so Ordway is on solid ground here.
The book's major focus is on placing Tolkien's faith in context. So when Ordway says that Tolkien liked to say particular prayers, she goes into detail on exactly what those prayers say and what it meant to a Catholic believer in Tolkien's day. There's an appendix with the full texts of the prayers in Latin (which Tolkien used in prayer, even after the vernacular reforms) and English. There's a whole sequence of biographical paragraphs on the priests of the Birmingham Oratory whom Tolkien would have known when he was receiving his childhood religious training there. There's even longer discussions of saints Tolkien especially venerated, and of the godparents of all of his children - a significant clue as to what was important to their parents. There's physical descriptions of the churches Tolkien attended, noting that the old churches in England had all been claimed by the Anglicans, and that most Catholic churches were drab functional buildings, sometimes claimed from other uses, until new ones of better aesthetic quality were built.
Despite all this detail, Ordway assumes that the reader knows absolutely nothing. She explains what the Old Testament is. She even explains what Christianity is. This smoothly blends into discussions of the anti-Catholic environment of England at the time, as reflected in those makeshift churches. She notes, which I think previous biographers have not, that Tolkien was initially one of only four Catholic professors at Oxford, and that the four of them carried the sacred canopy in the first Catholic procession in Oxford for centuries in 1934.
All of this works very well. Yet it doesn't always do so. Some reviews have called this book a hagiography, despite Ordway's specific denial; I wonder if anyone making that charge has ever seen an actual hagiography. But there is a tendency to skim over or argue against negative aspects. That Tolkien came close to lapsing from his faith in early adulthood, and that his wife was at times resentful that he'd made her convert, are mentioned, but there's very little detail on these. Perhaps there's none to be had, though in other respects Ordway is a remarkably diligent researcher.
More serious is the case of a chapter on Tolkien's racial views, which is mostly about his opposition to anti-Semitism and on the reflection of the Jews in the Dwarves. This reflection is framed as complimentary, so there's nothing about how the Dwarves in the earlier legendarium are basically evil. It's also unconscionable at this late date to discuss Tolkien and racism without noting his reflexive acceptance of negative stereotypes about Asian peoples and their reflection in the Orcs.
Later on, there's a rather strained and desperate argument that Tolkien wasn't really as much opposed to the reforms of Vatican II as he's usually depicted, and an even more strained and desperate argument that Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis wasn't really as anti-Catholic as he's usually depicted. Lewis combined deep personal friendship with individual Catholics with a reflexive anti-Catholic general attitude that often pained Tolkien and which probably descended from Lewis's Ulster Protestant childhood. This makes Lewis a perfect example of why "Some of my best friends are X" is a worthless defense of oneself against charges of prejudice.
I finished this book less happy with it than I'd been halfway through.
C.S. Lewis's Oxford by Simon Horobin (Bodleian Library, 2024)
I was especially anxious to read this detailed account of Lewis in Oxford, because I wondered what it would say about the Inklings. Many writers tend to jump to unwarranted conclusions about the history of this poorly-documented group. Horobin doesn't. He lays out the known facts, and doesn't speculate beyond them.
This is a marvelously researched book, delving into plenty of detail, particularly uncovering material about Lewis's interaction with his tutorial pupils from his comments on their essays, preserved in his papers in the Bodleian - something I can't recall seeing previous writers do. He's also wise and judicious on the dicey matter of Mrs. Moore.
The Inklings chapter does not reveal anything new, but at least it sticks to what is known. I was particularly pleased with lines like "Although Thursday-night meetings petered out at the end of the 1940s," because that's exactly how much is certainly known, no more. It's so reliable that two tiny errors stood out glaringly. Horobin calls the Cretaceous Perambulators, Lewis's walking group, "a subset of the Inklings," which they were not: the overlap between the groups was minimal. And he writes of "one August evening in 1940, when the group met at Tolkien's home." In fact, as is shown elsewhere in the letter by Lewis that Horobin quotes from (offering Lewis's paraphrase of Tolkien as Tolkien's words), Lewis and Havard going to Tolkien's home was a substitute for a meeting not held because nobody else (including Tolkien) could come to Lewis's college rooms that evening.
Sunday, September 15, 2024
language lesson
Mikey, what's that?
clown
It's a cloud, Mikey. Can you say cloud?
clown
Mikey, say k.
k
Now say loud.
loud
Now say k-loud.
k-loud
Now say cloud.
clown
clown
It's a cloud, Mikey. Can you say cloud?
clown
Mikey, say k.
k
Now say loud.
loud
Now say k-loud.
k-loud
Now say cloud.
clown
Friday, September 13, 2024
the other Lewis
The Tolkien conference in Seattle having been Saturday the 31st, and the C.S. Lewis conference outside Portland not beginning until the next Thursday, and only a 5-hour drive between them, what was I to do with the rest of my four days? I could spend them pleasantly just hanging around Seattle and Portland, but I had another idea.
A few years ago I spent an enjoyable week following the trail of another Lewis - Meriwether Lewis - and the Lewis and Clark Expedition around western Montana. Why not explore the western extent of their journey down the Snake and Columbia Rivers? Unlike the Montana sites, I'd seen most of this before, but not as a continuous journey.
So on Sunday I drove up and based myself in the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick), and on Monday drove up along the Snake as far as the Nez Perce villages east of Lewiston, Idaho, and back again. Tuesday I went down the Columbia as far as Portland (arriving in time to make a visit to Powell's) and then checked into my hotel for the CSL conference. Wednesday I drove back to the river and down it to the coast, then back up by the direct road.
Mostly I was watching the scenery. The Clearwater and Snake in western Idaho and eastern Washington are huge flows of water through dry, desert landscapes, often with dramatic cliffs framing the water; further down on the Columbia, the cliffs become even more dramatic, and demonstrative of geological layers, about the point that the Oregon border hits the river. The mid-Columbia has gentler shores, but in Lewis and Clark's day it was full of hazardous rapids, since smoothed out by a system of power-generating dams. Coming down from Portland on the Oregon side of the river, the town of Rainier is the first one that looks and feels like it's near the ocean, and from then on the salt air is palpable.
I stopped along the way at every museum and historic site that my guidebooks listed as having a Lewis and Clark reference, and wound up reading a vast number of independently written descriptions of the expedition, most with some special reference to the site they were at. I was most concerned to get to the Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment on the Washington shore, because it was still being constructed the last time I was there. I arrived, having come down that side of the river past Dismal Nitch (which I'd been to before, but it hadn't yet had that name - taken from Clark's description of the place in the November weather - on the signs then), at about noon, only to find that the tiny parking lot was entirely full. I gave up and, the local town having nowhere to eat, drove across the estuary bridge - four miles long - to Astoria on the Oregon side. Astoria is full of eateries with excellent clam chowders. Then I went down to Fort Clatsop nearby, where the explorers had finally settled in for the rest of the winter. The replica fort has been rebuilt, in a more authentic style (logs hewn by axe instead of chain-saw, for instance), since I was last there long ago.
At about 4 pm I headed back across the river to try Cape Disappointment again. This close to closing there were parking spaces, but the path up the hill to the center was steep and exhausting. Aside from the requisite expedition history and some impressive ocean views, there wasn't much to it, but I'm glad to have been there and seen what it was like. That their admission desk only takes cash while the one in Oregon only takes credit cards, though they're both NPS facilities, is just a little mystery.
A few years ago I spent an enjoyable week following the trail of another Lewis - Meriwether Lewis - and the Lewis and Clark Expedition around western Montana. Why not explore the western extent of their journey down the Snake and Columbia Rivers? Unlike the Montana sites, I'd seen most of this before, but not as a continuous journey.
So on Sunday I drove up and based myself in the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick), and on Monday drove up along the Snake as far as the Nez Perce villages east of Lewiston, Idaho, and back again. Tuesday I went down the Columbia as far as Portland (arriving in time to make a visit to Powell's) and then checked into my hotel for the CSL conference. Wednesday I drove back to the river and down it to the coast, then back up by the direct road.
Mostly I was watching the scenery. The Clearwater and Snake in western Idaho and eastern Washington are huge flows of water through dry, desert landscapes, often with dramatic cliffs framing the water; further down on the Columbia, the cliffs become even more dramatic, and demonstrative of geological layers, about the point that the Oregon border hits the river. The mid-Columbia has gentler shores, but in Lewis and Clark's day it was full of hazardous rapids, since smoothed out by a system of power-generating dams. Coming down from Portland on the Oregon side of the river, the town of Rainier is the first one that looks and feels like it's near the ocean, and from then on the salt air is palpable.
I stopped along the way at every museum and historic site that my guidebooks listed as having a Lewis and Clark reference, and wound up reading a vast number of independently written descriptions of the expedition, most with some special reference to the site they were at. I was most concerned to get to the Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment on the Washington shore, because it was still being constructed the last time I was there. I arrived, having come down that side of the river past Dismal Nitch (which I'd been to before, but it hadn't yet had that name - taken from Clark's description of the place in the November weather - on the signs then), at about noon, only to find that the tiny parking lot was entirely full. I gave up and, the local town having nowhere to eat, drove across the estuary bridge - four miles long - to Astoria on the Oregon side. Astoria is full of eateries with excellent clam chowders. Then I went down to Fort Clatsop nearby, where the explorers had finally settled in for the rest of the winter. The replica fort has been rebuilt, in a more authentic style (logs hewn by axe instead of chain-saw, for instance), since I was last there long ago.
At about 4 pm I headed back across the river to try Cape Disappointment again. This close to closing there were parking spaces, but the path up the hill to the center was steep and exhausting. Aside from the requisite expedition history and some impressive ocean views, there wasn't much to it, but I'm glad to have been there and seen what it was like. That their admission desk only takes cash while the one in Oregon only takes credit cards, though they're both NPS facilities, is just a little mystery.
Thursday, September 12, 2024
The Undiscovered C.S. Lewis Conference
Much of a week's gap in my posting here was due to my attendance at a conference of this title, held at George Fox University, a Quaker institution in Newberg, Oregon, a town between Portland and Salem. The Cascade Moot in Seattle of which I'd previously written having been the previous weekend, a combination trip by car seemed feasible.
I was one of a few Tolkienists among the 250 Lewisians at this conference, and probably (I didn't ask) the only non-Christian in the entire number, so what was I doing there? Well, you don't have to be a Christian to enjoy the work of C.S. Lewis. I find his to be a mind of intense interest that I enjoy engaging with. Lewis's Christianity was a substrate that underlay everything he did, as was also the case for Tolkien; it was more prominent in Lewis mostly because he wrote theology and apologetics, and it's also more detectable in his fiction, but it doesn't shake the reader as some other Christian novelists do. And in so much of his other work, particularly literary history and criticism, his intellectual curiosity is primary and while his religion remains present, it's that substrate which informs his work.
The presenters at this conference were the same way. Intellectual curiosity about Lewis, even his openly religious works, was the constant theme. There was little preaching and no berating, if only because they are secure in their beliefs and assumed that everyone agrees with them. I accepted the context for the purposes of attending the conference, same as I did when I attended gatherings of Peter Jackson movie fans. In other words, it was totally unlike a typical Christian radio station.
The conference lasted three days spread across four calendar days, and it was busy. Meals were included for those who cared to pay the fee, and plenary sessions, including six keynote speakers, were held in the same large private dining room in the cafeteria building where we took meals, except for two theatrical presentations in the evenings. Between plenaries, we scattered to classrooms across campus - this was during term, so on Thursday and Friday things had to be squeezed in - for any of usually five paper sessions going on at once.
The main theme of the conference, perhaps the reason it was dubbed "Undiscovered," was the description of an immense number of unpublished, and generally unknown, Lewis works in manuscript. I'd been aware of the unpublished section of the preface to The Screwtape Letters tying it into the world of the Ransom trilogy, but I didn't know of the trove of sarcastic poems that Lewis wrote in his own copies of books by a philologist whom he found particularly irritating (you can read the full article by the presenting scholar), or of the report of his year as Vice-President of his Oxford college, an administrative job for which he was totally unsuited, which he put in the form of a facetious verse play, handwritten in a book of such reports, where nobody but succeeding Vice-Presidents was ever likely to see it. It was titled "The Tragi-Comicall Briefe Reigne of Lewis the Bald." There were also discussions of other annotations Lewis wrote in books he owned, and the attempt to date them according to his changing handwriting; and a collection of the publishing blurbs he wrote for his own and others' books.
But the best keynote presentations were two detailed scholarly analyses, based on divergent scholarly principles. Holly Ordway, the only Tolkienist among the keynoters, did a stunningly careful source analysis of exactly what evidence survives of Tolkien's opinion of Lewis's Narnian stories. It turns out that every negative comment Tolkien is credited with are all responses to Lewis having read him drafts of the first two chapters of the first book, so depictions of this as a sweeping condemnation are unwarranted. It's true that, later on, he didn't care for Narnia as a whole, but he framed that as a matter of personal taste, it did not affect his friendship with Lewis, and he was happy to recommend the books and give copies to his grandchildren.
Then Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia, explored the origins of the name "Narnia" in Lewis's mind. We have two writings by Lewis giving different sources; one the name of a Roman town and the other derived from the Latin word inane, which differs both in pronunciation and meaning from the English word. The two are not necessarily incompatible. But that's all we know, so Ward proceeded to speculate on the implications of these, but unlike most speculating scholars he had his feet firmly planted in the known facts.
And there was much more. There were only about four other people there I knew, but it was easy to strike up conversations, because we were all there for the same purpose. I was staying at a hotel in the next town down the road, and there wasn't much time between conference session to do much other than ablutions and sleep, so that's why you didn't hear from me. I was engrossed in Lewis.
I was one of a few Tolkienists among the 250 Lewisians at this conference, and probably (I didn't ask) the only non-Christian in the entire number, so what was I doing there? Well, you don't have to be a Christian to enjoy the work of C.S. Lewis. I find his to be a mind of intense interest that I enjoy engaging with. Lewis's Christianity was a substrate that underlay everything he did, as was also the case for Tolkien; it was more prominent in Lewis mostly because he wrote theology and apologetics, and it's also more detectable in his fiction, but it doesn't shake the reader as some other Christian novelists do. And in so much of his other work, particularly literary history and criticism, his intellectual curiosity is primary and while his religion remains present, it's that substrate which informs his work.
The presenters at this conference were the same way. Intellectual curiosity about Lewis, even his openly religious works, was the constant theme. There was little preaching and no berating, if only because they are secure in their beliefs and assumed that everyone agrees with them. I accepted the context for the purposes of attending the conference, same as I did when I attended gatherings of Peter Jackson movie fans. In other words, it was totally unlike a typical Christian radio station.
The conference lasted three days spread across four calendar days, and it was busy. Meals were included for those who cared to pay the fee, and plenary sessions, including six keynote speakers, were held in the same large private dining room in the cafeteria building where we took meals, except for two theatrical presentations in the evenings. Between plenaries, we scattered to classrooms across campus - this was during term, so on Thursday and Friday things had to be squeezed in - for any of usually five paper sessions going on at once.
The main theme of the conference, perhaps the reason it was dubbed "Undiscovered," was the description of an immense number of unpublished, and generally unknown, Lewis works in manuscript. I'd been aware of the unpublished section of the preface to The Screwtape Letters tying it into the world of the Ransom trilogy, but I didn't know of the trove of sarcastic poems that Lewis wrote in his own copies of books by a philologist whom he found particularly irritating (you can read the full article by the presenting scholar), or of the report of his year as Vice-President of his Oxford college, an administrative job for which he was totally unsuited, which he put in the form of a facetious verse play, handwritten in a book of such reports, where nobody but succeeding Vice-Presidents was ever likely to see it. It was titled "The Tragi-Comicall Briefe Reigne of Lewis the Bald." There were also discussions of other annotations Lewis wrote in books he owned, and the attempt to date them according to his changing handwriting; and a collection of the publishing blurbs he wrote for his own and others' books.
But the best keynote presentations were two detailed scholarly analyses, based on divergent scholarly principles. Holly Ordway, the only Tolkienist among the keynoters, did a stunningly careful source analysis of exactly what evidence survives of Tolkien's opinion of Lewis's Narnian stories. It turns out that every negative comment Tolkien is credited with are all responses to Lewis having read him drafts of the first two chapters of the first book, so depictions of this as a sweeping condemnation are unwarranted. It's true that, later on, he didn't care for Narnia as a whole, but he framed that as a matter of personal taste, it did not affect his friendship with Lewis, and he was happy to recommend the books and give copies to his grandchildren.
Then Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia, explored the origins of the name "Narnia" in Lewis's mind. We have two writings by Lewis giving different sources; one the name of a Roman town and the other derived from the Latin word inane, which differs both in pronunciation and meaning from the English word. The two are not necessarily incompatible. But that's all we know, so Ward proceeded to speculate on the implications of these, but unlike most speculating scholars he had his feet firmly planted in the known facts.
And there was much more. There were only about four other people there I knew, but it was easy to strike up conversations, because we were all there for the same purpose. I was staying at a hotel in the next town down the road, and there wasn't much time between conference session to do much other than ablutions and sleep, so that's why you didn't hear from me. I was engrossed in Lewis.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
debate
I didn't watch the debate. (It seems to have been blacked out on our tv anyway, and I would have had to use the computer.) The reasons for not watching it were two: I was too nervous about it, and I didn't want to have to sit through DT ranting.
Instead, I've read and watched commentaries and clips. And that seems to have been enough to convey the gist. DT is so full of himself, so sure he's wonderful, that he figures he can just walk through it against an experienced prosecutor. He can't.
Instead, I've read and watched commentaries and clips. And that seems to have been enough to convey the gist. DT is so full of himself, so sure he's wonderful, that he figures he can just walk through it against an experienced prosecutor. He can't.
Monday, September 9, 2024
Oregon
The most surprising thing I learned in Oregon is that it's no longer illegal for drivers to pump their own gas there.
US road warriors have long known that two states, Oregon and New Jersey, required attendants to do it, as was the custom everywhere before the first gas crisis of 1973. I suppose it was a combination of a job creation program for gas station attendants and a fear that drivers wouldn't do it right. (Indeed, driving off with the hose still in the tank is an oops known to happen.)
The first time I filled the tank in Oregon on this trip, I didn't know the law had changed: there was still an attendant to do it, a practice I suppose will stick around for a while and gradually fade away. But the second time, there was no attendant, and when I went in to the shop to ask, I was told the law had changed over a year ago. This is the sort of news that should have produced banner headlines in the AAA magazine, but I didn't see anything there.
Here's the rules, though it doesn't seem to fit the discount station I was at, where they told me an attendant doesn't come in until mid-afternoon. This was in Yamhill County, which is one of the more populous counties where stations are required to offer attendant service at all times. But there was no attendant and no signs.
US road warriors have long known that two states, Oregon and New Jersey, required attendants to do it, as was the custom everywhere before the first gas crisis of 1973. I suppose it was a combination of a job creation program for gas station attendants and a fear that drivers wouldn't do it right. (Indeed, driving off with the hose still in the tank is an oops known to happen.)
The first time I filled the tank in Oregon on this trip, I didn't know the law had changed: there was still an attendant to do it, a practice I suppose will stick around for a while and gradually fade away. But the second time, there was no attendant, and when I went in to the shop to ask, I was told the law had changed over a year ago. This is the sort of news that should have produced banner headlines in the AAA magazine, but I didn't see anything there.
Here's the rules, though it doesn't seem to fit the discount station I was at, where they told me an attendant doesn't come in until mid-afternoon. This was in Yamhill County, which is one of the more populous counties where stations are required to offer attendant service at all times. But there was no attendant and no signs.
Sunday, September 1, 2024
Cascade Moot
It was a whim, of sorts. I spent Saturday in Seattle at Cascade Moot, one of the numerous regional meetings sponsored by Signum University, Corey Olsen's Tolkien-oriented study group, and presented the John Wain paper I'd written for Mythcon. The moot's theme was "The Importance of Secondary and Tertiary Characters," so I retitled it "John Wain: A Tertiary Inkling."
About 35 people, some older but mostly 30s-40s by the look of them, gathered in a ground-floor classroom in what is otherwise mostly a dormitory (though you wouldn't know it from what we saw of it) of the University of Washington, but it wasn't really necessary to be there, because there was also a large Zoom attendance. In fact six of the ten papers were given over Zoom, which is why it was a whim for me to travel this far.
Five of the ten papers, not counting mine, were Tolkienian in topic. Despite some of the presenters confessing nervousness at giving a presentation, they were fine, though more than one presenter pronounced "Aragorn" as "Aragon." The best papers were close readings of the texts of minor characters' appearances, squeezing out what could be fairly deduced about them: a theory that Goldberry is the personification of a yellow water lily; a comparison of three encounters with gatekeepers in LR, each introducing a new culture to the story in what are quite different expressions of the same basic concept. The same was true of some of the non-Tolkien papers: the very little that's said of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, in the Sherlock Holmes stories, but she's been expanded on in pastiches and film adaptations; and the evolution of the concept of a "Scooby gang" and how it differs from an Avengers-like collection of heroes or a hero-and-sidekick situation. Besides Scooby-Doo and Buffy, The Goonies and Stranger Things (neither of which I've seen) were cited as having the distinctive characteristics of a collection of diverse misfits who contribute individual skills to form a protagonist group greater than any of them.
More broadly, we had a firm reading of Eowyn from a woman who understood that her driving force was despair, and who suggested that victory opened the future for her and offered Faramir as a non-military role model, thus leading to her change of heart; and an even firmer reading of absent mothers, mostly in the Silmarillion, and how they're blamed for their children's misdeeds. Somewhat more dubious was a paper on Beregond which ran out of time to address the character's distinct appeal and human qualities after having spent an enormous amount of time on categorical throat-clearing of unnecessarily trying to distinguish primary, secondary, and tertiary characters in LR: why are you obsessed with these fine distinctions? what difference does it make?
The day got off to an awkward start when it turned out the AV setup hadn't been tested beforehand, and what was supposed to be the 15-minute introduction turned into 20 minutes of computer troubleshooting, and we only got back onto schedule when one paper on some minor character in some book I didn't know turned out to be so minor the paper was exceedingly short. But it mostly worked out well, and my own paper, which came last, attracted some interest and a few favorable comments, as well as a number of people now determined to read Diana Glyer's The Company They Keep.
I took the light rail in from the suburbs where I'm staying. Parking at the station was dicey as the lots have been hijacked by people using them as free airport parking for the holiday weekend (there's a station at the airport), but a few spaces had appeared early Saturday morning and I was on my way.
About 35 people, some older but mostly 30s-40s by the look of them, gathered in a ground-floor classroom in what is otherwise mostly a dormitory (though you wouldn't know it from what we saw of it) of the University of Washington, but it wasn't really necessary to be there, because there was also a large Zoom attendance. In fact six of the ten papers were given over Zoom, which is why it was a whim for me to travel this far.
Five of the ten papers, not counting mine, were Tolkienian in topic. Despite some of the presenters confessing nervousness at giving a presentation, they were fine, though more than one presenter pronounced "Aragorn" as "Aragon." The best papers were close readings of the texts of minor characters' appearances, squeezing out what could be fairly deduced about them: a theory that Goldberry is the personification of a yellow water lily; a comparison of three encounters with gatekeepers in LR, each introducing a new culture to the story in what are quite different expressions of the same basic concept. The same was true of some of the non-Tolkien papers: the very little that's said of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady, in the Sherlock Holmes stories, but she's been expanded on in pastiches and film adaptations; and the evolution of the concept of a "Scooby gang" and how it differs from an Avengers-like collection of heroes or a hero-and-sidekick situation. Besides Scooby-Doo and Buffy, The Goonies and Stranger Things (neither of which I've seen) were cited as having the distinctive characteristics of a collection of diverse misfits who contribute individual skills to form a protagonist group greater than any of them.
More broadly, we had a firm reading of Eowyn from a woman who understood that her driving force was despair, and who suggested that victory opened the future for her and offered Faramir as a non-military role model, thus leading to her change of heart; and an even firmer reading of absent mothers, mostly in the Silmarillion, and how they're blamed for their children's misdeeds. Somewhat more dubious was a paper on Beregond which ran out of time to address the character's distinct appeal and human qualities after having spent an enormous amount of time on categorical throat-clearing of unnecessarily trying to distinguish primary, secondary, and tertiary characters in LR: why are you obsessed with these fine distinctions? what difference does it make?
The day got off to an awkward start when it turned out the AV setup hadn't been tested beforehand, and what was supposed to be the 15-minute introduction turned into 20 minutes of computer troubleshooting, and we only got back onto schedule when one paper on some minor character in some book I didn't know turned out to be so minor the paper was exceedingly short. But it mostly worked out well, and my own paper, which came last, attracted some interest and a few favorable comments, as well as a number of people now determined to read Diana Glyer's The Company They Keep.
I took the light rail in from the suburbs where I'm staying. Parking at the station was dicey as the lots have been hijacked by people using them as free airport parking for the holiday weekend (there's a station at the airport), but a few spaces had appeared early Saturday morning and I was on my way.