The Benevolents

The Benevolents (click link to view) came out in 2021 under French title ''Les bienveillants' and was directed by Sarah Baril Gaudet. In the film the viewer goes into Tel-Aide Montreal call center. We follow a group of volunteers in training. The key to their important work is learning how to listen, "the importance of vigilent ears in a society of loneliness."

The volunteers listen to callers, lonely, desperate people calling to talk. They let the callers talk and through comments and questions affirm that they are there listening and that they HEAR what the caller says. They are the ears in the darkness that affirm the callers humanity and allow them to name their pain. We all could benefit from this training. The rare often lost art of listening is so life affirming. 

This film is part of a series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers available through the New York Times online. These include a spectrum of films from emerging directors to Oscar winners from around the world. 

"In the Distance" by Hernán Diaz

 

Håkan Söderström, is the giant of a man who is the hero of Hernán Diaz’s novel, “In the Distance.” The novel centers on a young Swedish immigrant to the U.S. who after becoming separated from his brother, Linus, arriving in San Francisco rather than New York, heads east to join his brother. The novel takes places sometime between the gold rush of 1849 and the civil war.

Håkan is a huge guy when he arrives and then throughout the novel he keeps growing. He always stands out - first because of his hugeness and secondly because of his limited English, which is compounded by his shyness. He tries to avoid problems/trouble, but cannot. As he travels ever eastward Håkan meets a strange assortment of frontier folks: a crazy Irish gold prospector, a woman with no teeth who keeps him as her plaything, a naturalist seeking life's secrets, a sadistic sheriff and amoral civil war soldiers. 

He learns self sufficiency as part of his journey becoming adept at trapping animals and foraging for food. This is partially the result of his having become a wanted man as a result of his having killed men -- something that he was driven by circumstances to do.

In the end our hero is driven to hiding in the wilderness, living in dugout dirt homes, and trapping and foraging for food. Years pass in this manner and Håkan loses himself in the rhythm of fixing his tunnel/house, trapping, picking wild plants, cooking, and doing all the previous over and over again. 

The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer and has many parallels in American literature. It is a kind of anti-western, one where, unlike The Virginian or Lonesome Dove, the hero does not triumph in obvious ways, but rather like more of the settlers of the west Håkan triumphs through perseverance. He has his moments of using traditional violence to overcome obstacles, and while these win the day, they also set him back through making him a wanted man. 

While for the majority of the novel, like an inverted Huckleberry Finn, he is striking out for New York, yet, in the end he ends up striking out, alone in Alaska to cross the Asian continent back to Sweden.

Anderson Paak- Come Down (live)

Big Frank has been listening to a lot of Anderson .Paak lately. Above is one of his best tunes "Come Down."

            Hey, now you, drank up all my liquor, come on

            What I'm 'posed to do now? (Hey, what I'm 'posed to do now?)
            And you talkin' all that shit, now come on
            You gon' have to back it up (ay, you gon' have to back it up)

             If I get too high now, sugar, come on
             II might never come down (I might never come down)

Now keep in mind that Anderson .Paak is a happily married 36 year-old with a couple of kids. So don't confuse the musician/singer with the character in the narrative of the song. That story line that is made more graphic in one music video that includes video of a guy in the background puking, fighting, threatening behavior, ... all of which goes totally with the lyrics above "If I get too high now, sugar, come on/ I might never come down (I might never come down).

As Live 365 puts it: "Listening to "Come Down" is like being a spy at a party. The vibe is lively and flamboyant, yet there's some kind of toxic behavior happening within the celebration's background. Is it possible to be mad and happy at the same time?" Indeed, Big Frank for one totally remembers times when the party crossed the line (or did it?).

Next, above, "Am I Wrong? and Let's Dance." This develops more a dance groove laying down a steady four on the floor with some beautiful guitar chords. Then .Paak comes in singing "I'm only comin out to play. The lyric gives a kind of carpe diem line about life not being something to be wasted. So one should "romance like you dance:" "Am I wrong to assume/if she can't dance/then she can't ooh." The groove keeps on with the drumbeat and the funky baseline. Big Frank thinks only the leaden footed will not be dancin by this point. Terrific song.

Andrew Jackson

 

Big Frank just finished Jon  Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson entitled American Lion:Andrew Jackson in the White House. While not exclusively a hagiography it never veers for long from the path of praise. The general thrust of the book is perhaps nicely captured by the above statue of Jackson which is in the center of Lafayette Square within President's Park in Washington, D.C., just to the north of the White House. Jackson is in uniform (modeled after the one he worn at the Battle of New Orleans), raising his hat with his right hand, while controlling the reins with his left hand as his horse rises on its rear legs (see above). This is the image of Jackson the war hero and the president who kept the union together thus postponing the Civil War for some two decades.

In the wake of the George Floyd demonstrations Andrew Jackson, along with many other American prominent historical figures were reexamined and found to be deeply flawed. Jackson's darker legacy as a slave holder and exterminator of Native Americans came to the fore. This centers primarily on Jackson's responsibility for the forced removal of Cherokee to Oklahoma in 1836-1850, which resulted in the deaths of some 4,000 Native Americans. The pedestal of the above statute was painted with the inscription "killer" and the demonstrators tied ropes and tried to topple the statue. Jackson stood firm and 4 of the demonstrators later were changed with destruction of federal property.

In reading this biography Big Frank was mostly left by Meacham, the author, with a generally positive view of Jackson. Jackson's role in the removal of the Cherokee was given much less press than his role in preserving the union, which centered primarily on his facing down South Carolina, led by John C. Calhoun, on the issue of nullification. In addition, Jackson like many of the early presidents, 12 out of 18, were slaveholders. Unlike Washington, Jackson did not free any of his slaves ever.

So, what's his positive legacy. For good or bad, Jackson is responsible for the strengthening of the presidency viz a vis the other two branches (legislature and supreme court). Strengthening and modeling its make towards the president's position today. Some of the ways future presidents followed Jackson were these as listed by Meacham:

• Running at the head of a national party;
• Fighting for a mandate from the people to govern in particular ways on particular issues;
• Depending on a circle of insiders and advisers;
• Using the media to transmit a consistent message at a constant pace; and
• Using the veto as political, not just a constitutional, weapon.

Some of the many other insights that Meacham brought out in his biography were how ill Jackson was for most of his presidency. It doesn't really matter which year or time you are talking about, Jackson was not well. He suffered from rotting teeth, chronic headaches, failing eyesight, bleeding in his lungs from TB, internal infections and pain from two bullet wounds from two separate duels. Yet despite all these he served two terms and was fully involved in both.

Another aspect brought to the fore in this biography was what came to be Jackson's adopted family: the Donaldsons, Andrew and Emily and four children. Andrew and Emily were first cousins and Emily was the niece of Jackson's wife, Sarah, who died before Jackson moved to Washington. Emily in a way took the place socially of Jackson's wife and became the White House hostess. Her husband Andrew served as Jackson's first secretary and all of them lived in the White House. Emily died of TB in the final year of the Jackson presidency. She was 29 at that time and at home in Nashville, looking out the window waiting for her husband to return from D.C. He arrived two days too late.

Emily Donaldson

During the first two years of his presidency Martin Van Buren, who was serving at that time as secretary of state and later as vice-president during Jackson's second term, went for horseback rides with Jackson every morning. Perhaps that led to the following political cartoon from 1836 of Jackson in a horserace with Martin Van Buren and others vying for the presidency at that time. The cartoon takes a slice of reality, Jackson on a visit to a racecourse when in danger from a wild horse said to Van Buren, "Get behind me, Mr. Van Buren. He will run you over." In time, as shown in the cartoon those words are thrown out as coming from Jackson as he rides Van Buren to victory in a race with the others running for president at that time: Daniel Webster, Hugh Lawson White, and William Henry Harrison.

Finally, Jackson lived outside of Nashville on a 1,000 acre cotton plantation with at the time of his death 110 slaves. He naturally had to make a number of trips to Washington and back from his home in Nashville. Each journey at that time prior to railroads took around a month. It's hard to imagine making such a journey under the conditions at the time, largely stage coaches with stops at fairly primitive inns along the way. Breakdowns were frequent as was the loss of baggage. When Andrew Donaldson returned to Nashville, belatedly as noted above, he personally brought the above portrait of Emily for fear of it getting lost if he shipped it.

Winnie the Pooh in China

Big Frank has been communicating off and on with a Chinese academic who writes about Emily Dickinson, often doing so from a Buddhist or Daoist perspective. Big Frank even published a couple of academic papers on Emily Dickinson and Daoism. The two of them are probably the only two in the world reading Emily Dickinson from a Daoist perspective.

Recently, their exchange of messages has taken a more political bent following the the tense confrontation Taiwan faced from China for hosting Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Big Franks's friend indicated that many in China were advocating that Pelosi's plane should be shot down! This was accompanied in her message with deprecating remarks about our president calling him "Sleepy Joe."

Big Frank recently replied to her on this noting the pervasive censoring of many digital platforms (gmail, Youtube, and Twitter). And Big Frank did a small experiment in sending her a message that included a reference to their President as Winnie the Pooh. The image when meant to refer to Xi Jinping is banned in China. There is an interesting array of such images that have been used in the past. Here are a few.

This is a good place to start. You can see below Xi Jinping and Obama and their counterparts Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

The next one below show Xi Jinping with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as Eeyore; particularly apt in both regards to capturing something of each leader.

The last image (see below) is noted on some news sites as the most widely censored photo of 2015: Xi Jinping during a parade and a children's toy car with Winnie the Pooh popping out on top.

"Knee Deep," Paul Beatty, and D'Anjelo

Big Frank is reading a Paul Beatty novel, "Slumberland." He's just getting into it so it's a bit early for him to be weighing in with some kind of eval of it much less a book review. However, one good take-away is the music that is referenced in the novel. The main character, called Darky, creates the perfect beat, moves to Berlin, and searches for the perfect musician to lay down a track for this, who turn out to be one Charles Stone known as the shwa because his tone is upside down, backwards, and unstressed - ⟨ə⟩. In the the second chapter of this book after a riff on having given up studying jazz to become a DJ, Darky then cites the song "Knee Deep" as an example of the ease of getting even an old grandmother to ease out onto the dance floor and "shake her brittle hips and swing her pendulous tits." And THAT is why Big Frank has included the song (see above). It was put out by Jay Morris, K Monique, and Z Brownlow under moniker of The J Morris Group's Z Brownlow.

Then, really only in passing, and keeping in mind that this is 2008, and at the same time that the reader of this novel, yours truly Big Frank Dickinson, is admittedly not really up to date, unlike the city where he currently resides (not Dickinson anymore, but Kansas City where everything is up-to-date), and as a result he had last listened to D'Anjelo some years back and was not even aware that in the interval D'Anjelo had gone through a real rough patch. It was REAL rough - by 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become estranged, his manger was gone, and most of his family was out of tough. Then there was a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. Yeah, this dude was on the proverbial slide! OK, keep in mind that it's 2008 in the book and the reference is only one word on one page, and then nothing. Well, Big Frank was not going to leave D'Angelo hanging like that.

Fast forward to ... 2014 and his release of "Black Messiah", his first LP since the 2000 release of Voodoo. From that album here is one song played live in SNL: "Really Love." He is back. Yeah, Big Frank is aware that for all you music aficionados this ain't nothing new, but to Big Frank, it's as though nothing ever really changed because he never knew until today that D'Anjelo had been on rough patch, so his having come back is equivalent (in Big Frank's mind) to his never having left in the first place (sorry D'Anjelo but truth be told that's how it is!). What it is!

Just Go Around It

Just Go Around It by Big Frank Dickinson 

When Big Frank was a kid (yes, he was like everyone - a kid) he made spending money shoveling walks, raking and mowing lawns. A number of years ago, while on a visit back to his old hometown of Dickinson, ND,  Big Frank showed his daughter, Gina, and niece, Julia, one he'd cleared predawn in the NoDak cold. They both thought it was cruel that the owner of that sidewalk, a Doctor, hadn’t invited Big Frank, who was actually at that time only six years old - a Little Frank, in at 20 below zero. See above for  a photo of the girls pretending that they were shoveling snow. The smiles show you it’s all in fun, but way back then when Big Frank was six; it sucked. We walked around town and Big Frank pointed out other homes that he had done chores for when a kid; Big Frank divided them in two: always invited in or not. It was either always or never. Mrs. Clark, always served lemonade with cookies and we sat and ate them together. Her son became a priest and hit on Big Frank's mom. These people, with their big lawyer-moneyed walk, on a corner lot with a double wide driveway, and lots of skinny interior paths only opened the door when asked to pay. Another guy invited Big Frank in more than anyone. I used to mow Dr. Connor's lawn and put on storm windows for him in the fall. He would sit at the kitchen table and look out back at Big Frank working his push mower. His back yard was full of all kinds of stuff and when Big Frank would come on to something like a bike, he would lean out the window and yell: “That’s OK, just mow around it.” His son got in trouble after high school and enlisted to stay out of jail; got sent to Viet Nam and was shot. Big Frank remembers sending him his first letter of condolence that he ever wrote. It was at he Uncle Jack’s in Pennsylvania where Big Frank had been sent to give his mother some peace during the summer of 1968 (that's a story for another time). Uncle Jack offered to help write it, but Big Frank was offended at the offer; and sat down at a desk to write it himself. It was tough going, but he wrote what he knew. Our families had been friends and Big Frank had liked his son, Doug. He threw the wickedest curve ball ever. He could make that ball jump, dance, and zoom inside and out. Nobody could put more stuff on a baseball than he could. So that’s what Big Frank wrote his dad; straight to the point: how he was sorry about his son having gotten shot and how he’d miss him and ended by praising his curve ball saying that it was the best Big Frank had ever seen; and then mailed the note, sure that what had been written was true of what he knew, his loss, and included some praise. But still it seemed such a weak thing to give someone whose son was dead. Big Frank was surprised in the years ahead when that letter was pulled out again and again and as it was read to Big Frank, Dr. Connor would smile, thinking of his son. It was then that Big Frank: knew he hadn’t gone around that one.

Aphorisms!

 Aphorisms to Make you Think

 

Big Frank was recently presented by Magne with a great collection of aphorisms, The Oxford Book of Aphorisms.  As is written on the back:  "This anthology demonstrates to the full how brilliantly the aphorist can illumine the hidden truth, or lay bare the ironies of existence."  Below, Big Frank has selected a few gems that give the reader pause as the hidden truth slowly emerges.

 

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

Oscar Wilde

 

"Try to arrange your life in such a way that you can afford to be disinterested.  It is the most expensive of all luxuries, and the one best worth having."

W. R. Inge

 

"We discover in ourselves what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves."

Vauvenargues

 

"It is so many years before one can believe enough in what one feels even to know what the feeling is." 

W. B. Yeats

 

"Exuberance is beauty."

William Blake

 

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth."

Joubert

 

"One keeps saying the same thing, but the fact that one has to say it is eery."

Elias Canetti

 

"Explaining is generally half confessing."

Marquess of Hilifax

 

"Pleasure chews and grinds us."

Montaigne

 

"Happiness is a how, not a what, a talent, not an object."

Herman Hesse

 

"Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

"The pleasure of love is loving, and we get more happiness from the passion we feel than from the passion we inspire."

La Rochefoucauld

 

"The offender never pardons."

George Herbert

 

18th Harvard Studies & John Quincy Adams

 

John Quincy Adams returned to the newly independent United States of America in 1786 after having spent fully six years with his father in Europe. His father's insistence that he attend Harvard brought him back. After some refresher work in Greek he took the admission exam for Harvard.

"Adams was asked to construe three stanzas from Horace and a passage from the Iliad, then quizzed on the works of Locke, on Euclid, and on geography" and "p  Hresident Willard asked him to translate several English sentences into Latin." Geography, geometry, political science, and Greek . . . maybe we should try a little more of that. I don't think many would muster the necessary skills to get by that entrance exam these days. However, it does beg the question what skills should a student have to advance study at college? We might all agree on crossing out the Greek and even the political science. It may have been included due to the founding struggles of politically putting the new nation together. Well, on second thought, given the recent strains on our political structures, maybe Locke should be included. Given the struggles that more have with writing in English perhaps some foreign language study would help with that as well.

He was admitted, tuition free in recognition of his father national service, but admonished not to wear a hat when crossing the Harvard yard except in inclement weather. Adams graduated second in his class and delivered an English oration on "the necessity of public faith to the well-being of a community," something that many today could benefit from listening to.

John Quincy Adams - One of our Finest!

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/national-portrait-gallery-acquires-earliest-known-photograph-us-president

The above photo is of John Quincy Adams, our sixth president (1825-29), and the first to be photographed. This photo was taken in 1843.  It was acquired in 2017 by The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.  for $360,500 (Big Frank's favorite D.C. museum - when in the capital do not miss going there). This particular photo is the first/earliest known photograph of a U.S. president. 

Adams was 76 years old when he had it taken. The photograph of President John Quincy Adams is a unique daguerreotype and was produced by artist Philip Haas just four years after Louis Daguerre’s radical invention was revealed to the world. The portrait has been on view in America’s Presidents since 2018.

In March 1843, Adams visited the Washington, D.C., studio of Haas for a portrait sitting, becoming the first U.S. President to have his likeness captured through the new medium of photography. This sitting took place nearly 15 years after Adams had served as the nation’s sixth President (1825–1829). At the time, he was serving in Congress as a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.

Adams meticulously maintained a diary from 1779 until his death in 1848. He noted in his diary the taking of this portrait session in March 1843. He wrote that he walked to the photographer Haas’ studio at 9 o’clock in the morning “my hands in woolen lined gloves bitterly pinched with cold. Found Horace Everett [U.S. Congressman from Vermont’s third district] there for the same purpose of being facsimiled. Haas took him once, and then with his consent took me three times, the second of which he said was very good—for the operation is delicate: subject to many imperceptible accidents, and fails at least twice out of three times.

Adams' diary writing was begun at the urging of his father, John Adams. He urged his son to keep a journal of  "the events that happen to me, and of object that I see, and of characters that I converse with from day to day." What a great prompt for a journal. It obviously inspired Quincy Adams for he started in 1779 at the age of 12 and continued for the rest of his life. On the front of the first journal, a small sheaf of papers bound by a string was written "JOURNAL BY ME." As he progressed Adams later bought five-hundred-page hard-bound volumes. By the end of his life, he had filled up 51!

Below is a cleaned up version of his portrait that can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Daguerreotype of Quincy Adams by Philip Haas, 1843

Southworth & Hawes - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Quincy Adams. Copy of 1843 Daguerreotype by Philip Haas. This is apparently a copy by Southworth & Hawes of a lost original daguerreotype by Phillip Haas (active 1839-57), ca. 1843. Oliver (1970a) discusses the Metropolitan Museum dagurreotype as by Southworth & Hawes and two related prints that clearly attribute it to Haas. Marder and Pierce (1995) correct the attribution of the Metropolitan's piece to Haas and describe it as a copy. Newhall (1977) describes a related plate signed by Haas, which Newhall donated to the Metropolitan Museum.

Dirty Money

 

Big Frank watched three episodes of "Dirty Money"  last night. It's s a Netflix original television series that focuses on corporate corruption, securities fraud and other tales on acquiring and moving dirty money. Its producer is Alex Gibney, a pro at this type of documentary having done some 48 in total. Gibney approaches documentary in the expository style like Ken Burns- eliciting testimony from subjects along with voice-over narration.

The series includes two years of programming that came out in 2018 and 2020. Each season has 8 episodes of one hour each. The first year focusses on such areas as the Volkswagon emissions scandal, payday loans, Donald Trump/confidence man, and then in the second season Wells Fargo's fraudulent banking practices, Prime Minister Najib Razak theft of Malaysian funds, slumlord Jared Kusher and more.

"Dirty Money” shows us plenty of crooks, but also shows how it is all too often the systems or lack thereof that allow those people to thrive. The price we pay is huge in terms of the millions of people impacted along with the environmental degradation. This is a current that runs through all the episodes and ties it together as firmly as the corruption.

Big Frank's one reservation about packing so much corruption on one series of films that many, like Big Frank, binge watch, is that en masse it leaves the viewer feeling helpless to oppose such corruption displayed on such a massive scale.

"Small Things Like These" by Claire Keegan is one of 13 books nominated this year for the Booker Prize. The Irish author, Cleaire Keegan,  is primarily known as a short story writer and this book, at 128 pages can be classified as a novella. Perhaps because of its condensed length it packs an even bigger punch. Reviews have been generally positive with many remarking on the moral storytelling as being all the more impactful for taking place with a Christmas backdrop. The heroism demonstrated by Bill Furlong is understated and because of this perhaps comes across more powerfully.

The Times Literary Supplement wrote, "Keegan knows how to weigh and pace her sentences, and her fine judgement delivers many subtle pleasures ... [she] fully exploits the power of understatement." We follow the life story of William Furlong from his orphaned childhood through his growth, marriage, and family life. When he displays the bravery that brings into focus the moral clarity of this novella we are not surprised, but the quiet understated way in which Keegan relays it makes it all the more impactful.

The book is short and can be read in less than a couple of hours. It will stay with you for a much longer time. It's a rare book with an even rarer moral punch.

 

The Wire - Songs

 "Way Down in the Hole" is a song written by the singer-songwriter Tom Waits. It was included on his 1987 album Franks Wild Years, which was later made into a stage production. The song was used as the theme for HBO's The Wire. Tom Waits' version of the song was used in season two of the five-season show. You can listen to Waits' version below.

 

A different recording was used each season. Versions, in series order, were recorded by The Blind Boys of Alabama, Tom Waits, The Neville Brothers, DoMaJe, and Steve Earle. The version for season four was performed by Baltimore teenagers Ivan Ashford, Markel Steele, Cameron Brown, Tariq Al-Sabir and Avery Bargasse.

Here's Steve Earle singing his version live. By the way Earle appeared in the series as a very sympathetic drug counselor who strove mightily to get Bub off drugs.

Big Frank is currently in the process of watching all five seasons (on season five now). The interweaving of separate plots lines, characters, and themes over the five seasons in masterfully done. The characters are well rounded and go through growth and disintegration as befitting the lines in any real person's life. Baltimore is the backdrop to the series that focusses primarily on the police departments and a wide cast of cops running from those on the beat up to higher ranking officers and commissions as well. Interwoven throughout are stories of the dock workers, the political landscape, the educational system, and the newspaper.

Here is an excellent review of the series from its fifth season. Surprisingly the program garnered few awards while it was still running. Some attribute that to its dense plot line and the fact that it was set in Baltimore rather than LA. However, now, looking back, it is solidly listed among the best television series ever and often in the top two or three.

Today's Forecast -- HOT

Big Frank extends apologies for the lapse in postings. Many may have wondered, "What up, Big Frank; why no postings for so long?" Well, dawgs... I ain't got no good reply to that." Let's just say that certain habits have yet to be firmly in place. Summer is upon us. The heat is sizzling all of Europe and the weather map of the U.S., I kid you not, has no clouds on it - for the entire lower 48 - not one cloud!! The weather man also put one giant sun over the entire country - we gonna bake!

However, not to worry; Big Frank got AC! However, those without AC - some 10% to 15% of American homes -- they have to figure out a way to keep cool during this heat wave. According to Gregory Wellenius, a professor of environmental health, some 5,600 people die per year in the U.S. from excessive heat. The human body functions best at 98.6 degrees. When the temperature outside exceeds that, cooling the body becomes very difficult. “In an average year in the U.S., heat kills more people than any other type of extreme weather,” says Kristina Dahl, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. An article in The Scientific American from last year enumerated how deadly such heat can be by citing fatalities from last year's Northwest heatwave:  "Hundreds of people died in the recent Pacific Northwest heat wave, according to estimates: there were at least 486 deaths in British Columbia, 116 in Oregon and 78 in Washington (by comparison, hurricanes have killed an average total of 46 people a year in the U.S. over the past 30 years)."

Not to make light of the threat of heat, but rather out of an urge to keep cool as cool as the Hippy Dippy Weatherman, George Carlin, there is this.

David Buck Patterson

"April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers."

It turns out that T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is an eminently apt poem for today. While composed over 100 years ago, the central question of the poem on whether the wasteland of the modern world can regenerate itself is as central today as it was a century ago. Beyond that the world in 1919 was in the midst of a world flu pandemic not unlike what we are facing today.

That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! 

Big Frank has no lilacs but has mixed memory and desire in this cruelest month of May through his genealogical work (memory) and its record (desire). While "The Waste Land" is, no doubt, an unusual springboard into genealogy it seems to be connected to pretty much everything else so why not? The connection, tenuous Big Frank agrees, is the year 1919. That year the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919 was raging and that is the year that Big Frank's Great Granduncle, David Buck Patterson, died.

Big Frank is back from a marathon drive cross county - out to Sacramento and back. In all it was a total of 8 full days of driving, mostly done at top speeds of 80 mph. No speeding tickets; however, Big Frank did get nabbed by the California Highway Patrol for passing in a no-pass zone, an infraction that has cost him $280.00 plus some addition $40 in online traffic lessons to keep the points away from the insurance company!

While in California Big Frank's daughter, Gina and Big Frank had a terrific time visiting wine country and it's summer resident, Jack Stack, working in her yard, playing with her cats, meeting her friends and visiting Loyalton, CA to gather family history on Big Frank's great granduncle David Buck Patterson (1826 - 1919). He was born in Hammond, NY, moved to Jefferson, Wisconsin where he ran a logging gang and then bought a team of oxen and traveled cross country to prospect for gold on the Yuba River. He struck gold and parleyed that into a saw mill, renting donkeys, setting up a meat packing business, and finally running a ranch in Loyalton. He was one of the original settlers there. His portrait is in the local museum and there are streets in town named after him.
 

Happy Birthday, Pam

Today is Pam's birthday and so Big Frank started the day with baking a cake. This is a spice cake, which Big Frank baked in a standard rectangular pan. Then after taking it out, Big Frank decided that he wanted a double decker cake. He had looked for two round cake pans but found them not. Not to be outdone, Big Frank took the cake out of the rectangular pan and then after cutting it in half, he stacked the two halves and applied cream cheese frosting. In the end with the frosting running out it turned out somewhat disappointing. See below:

Big Frank, in addition to the cake, gave her a telescope. This particular one is called the Celestron EQ70. It will allow her to observe the moon, the planets, and moons of the planets along with some of the constellations. We spent a good two hours putting the damn thing together. Big Frank sometimes wonders who are the nitwits that write the instructions on how to assembly such things. Big Frank tried Youtube as well and was disappointed. The best instructions were given by a guy speaking Hindi, a language Big Frank is not familiar with despite the fact that he his brother Fuzz often feigned knowledge of its cousin tongue, Punjabi. So Big Frank turned down the sound of the Hindi instructions and followed the assembly silently on film. In the end this is what Big Frank and Pam ended up with. See below:

The telescope works, but does not seem to be assembled 100% as intended. We are taking a break for now. The rest of the day is for Pam's birthday. The telescope will remain at home while we along with friends go out for dinner and drinks. Happy Birthday, Pam!

Ukrainian Hope

 Francis Fukuyama, of the End of History fame, recently published an article in American Purpose entitled Preparing for Defeat. Basically Fukuyama states that Russia is heading for defeat. He believes that Putin mistakenly believed that the Ukrainians would welcome the Russian troops and the Ukrainian army would collapse quickly. That ain't happening! It's not going to get better, "Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks." 

Fukuyama expands on his article in an interview published in the Washington Post here: "Russia does not begin to have a large enough military to occupy Ukraine and bring Ukraine to a point where they’d make that kind of concession. This is a country with a population of over 40 million, and Putin has already committed the vast bulk of his military.

It’s extremely costly for the Russians to keep up this kind of siege. Every single day, they lose a large number of armored vehicles, men, supplies. The morale in the Russian army appears to be extremely low." The end will be, according to Fukuyama "sudden and catastrophic." With this defeat will be the end of Putin for how can a strong man continue if he's seen to be weak. NATO does not need to supply MIGs, they would not make much of a difference. What needs to continue is a "continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing.

A man pushing a bicycle in front of a building damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Thursday.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press 

The war in Ukraine continues. The Russian forces are closing in on Kyiv, have taken large swaths of territory along the Black Sea coast, but seem to be stalled and are suffering losses in manpower and in equipment. So Russia is now bombarding cities including hospitals and residences. President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Russians of terrorizing Ukraine in an attempt to break the will of the people. “A war of annihilation,” he called it. The dead increase on both sides and the destruction mounts. We are nowhere near the end of this war, but with all the destruction one cannot help but think of how it all can ever, if ever, be put back to normal. Wislawa Szymborska wrote a apt poem on just that.

The End and the Beginning

by WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA

Translated by Joanna Trzeciak 

After every war

someone has to clean up.

Things won’t

straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall.

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,

and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.

Source: Miracle Fair: selected poems of Wisława Szymborska (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 2001)

The Way Out

As can be seen from the sidebar listing what Big Frank is currently reading, he is interested in learning more on "How to Overcome Toxic Polarization" in Peter R. Coleman's recent book, The Way Out. From what Big Frank haa read so far this is not a book that lays out a roadmap for how one side or the other triumphs over the other. This is not a manual on how to debate better nor is it a treatise laying out the moral superiority of one side over the other. Rather it appears, from what Big Frank has read so far to be a book on how the two sides broadly understood to be facing off against each other in the U.S. today could stop thinking of themselves as people in opposition to each other despite differing viewpoints on any number of issues. How does this happen? Perhaps the best method is, according to for example the experiences of pro-choice and anti-abortion groups in Boston, having the experience of being with the opposition, as it were, of learning that the point of opposition between you does not define either of you, and that there is so much more to each of you, more for each of you to share and care about. It reminds me of Emmanuel Levinas' philosophy of The Other wherein he writes that because of the asymmetrical relationship of our relatioship with our neighbour, we have an ethical responsibilit that compels us to respond to him. In this way our humanity is released as the solipsistic all-for-myself becomes a being-for-the-other. In this way we become ethically responsible for our neighbour. Those of us who have taken the time to sit down face-to-face with those on the other side of many issues we feel strongly about (abortion, vaccines, guns, election outcomes, healthcare, etc.) and continue the conversation for some time often find an acceptance of and growing affection for that person/those people who were previously primarily defined as the opposition.

Solidarity with Ukraine

Today is day four of Russia's invation of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are holding strong in the face of the reported 150,000 Russian soldiers with their tanks, jets, helicopters, etc. etc. In some ways it is amazing that the country has withstood such a powerful invation as well as they have. However, many question their ability to hold on to control of the country and hold off the Russians for much longer. I spoke again with my son and daughter-in-law who live in Krakow, Poland. My daughter-in-law is Ukrainian and has indicated that her parents, who live near Odessa, are safe and currently out of harms way. They had one friend with her daughter stay with them last night. This woman is now on her way to Warsaw to stay with friends. She had to make her way to Poland via a very circuitous route traveling through Moldova to Romania, and then through Hungary and Slovakia to Poland. It took her two days. They have another friend who was arriving tonight after a two-day train journey. The numbers of refugees on trains and on the highways is tremendous and has clogged movement down to a crawl as women and children exit Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands are leaving. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave and are expected to report for service defending Ukraine from the invading Russians.

Back After 10-year Break

Big Frank is back. Let's not get into why he went away in the first place. Indeed, many of you may well be thinking, "I didn't know that Big Frank was gone," or more deprecatingly, "Who is Big Frank?" As for the second question, Big Frank is perhaps best known as "former mayor" and "part-time jewel thief." While there may be some who dispute those epithets, it is not for Big Frank to engage with the doubters of this world. In following with the opening info, and in keeping with that, this is a sunny, cheerful blog even though it is located in an often cloudy and dour world. We are walking on the sunny side of the street even if that be to the tune of Blues.

Big Frank intends to post regularly as was done 10 years ago, prior to Facebook taking over the world. Perhaps this signals a change of the times and if so that would be a welcome one for everyone. Postings, as before will cover a wide range of topics: poetry, music, books, current events, food, Kansas City stuff, Poland, Zags, and so so much more.

Feel free to comment on any topic that you would like to engage in. Big Frank looks forward to hearing from you.