EIGHT MORE POEMS FROM INDIA, WITH A MIRACULOUS ADDENDUM

9. TELL ME, SIMONE WEIL,

To be "a crippled no one"
doesn't exclude happiness?

It depends on where you got your cane.
Youth demanded caviar;

yet there's no shame for Lazarus
to dine on crumbs from God.

A satisfied belly
resurrects all--except you?

I have my doubts:
self-pity is inverse ambtion;

pride the obverse of despair.
Beggars aren't always losers:

just a little hint of butter
on a piece of mouldy bread

--That's my lot--Poison from Midas, yet
God's almost nothing is manna enough--

Sin thought life was privately unfair;
now I dine on air.

10. THE POET

At first you don't notice
something is missing, like
a spider with six legs.

Scurries with the best of them,
makes a proper web;
yet she's deficient:

partly a predator,
partly a fly, this
thing is so odd

faith chastises God:
why create misfits
with venom and wings?

11. FLAT SHARP AND NATURAL

I play scales on the piano
as well as I climb Jacob's ladder:
technically, spiritually,
my place is the bottom rung.

Yet when I really practice
Mozart and humility,
that most discriminating of all listeners
hears me in absolute silence

and, though I'm bad, is not displeased.
One music serves, the other soars,
and even a leper can reach God with both--
That's what I know; and that's what I believe.

12. THE SUPREME COMMANDER OF ANTS
ALSO CONTROLS YOU

To negotiate this field
where food is scarce
and peace even scacer,
you must follow orders

(even if you claim
you're free as birds,
which of course aren't free)
life obeys necessity

beetle to king--
Wizards and veils
are pure fictions.
You are one, too;

genes have invented
what helps them survive:
am, self. No matter,
follow your sham.

13. YOU'RE A MESS

You're a mess. Greed and
anger let you forget;
rage at the world;
spite overcomes it.

This has been our catechism
for over 10,000 years.
This is one exit, yet
life has many cages;

we choose our cells and
the worst one is this:
worship yourself and
praise God with your lips.

14. FAST FAITH

Jeeza will pleasya,
yet Wicca is quicka.

15. SEPARATION SONG

I am consciousness;
I was created by genes
somewhere around A.D.
minus two million and six.

Since then I've painted
wild horses and shamans,
and upside down churches
by thoughts called Chagall.

O I give up,
says the duck.
I am a dog
says the fox;

I am too fat
says the mantis;
hardy alive, says the virus,
I'm almost nothing at all.

I have created
Beethoven and Hitler,
Pablo Picasso and icing--
Peace, Laura Riding:

"The wind suffers from blowing;
the earth suffers from turning;
the sun suffers from burning,
and I from a living name."

O I give up,
says the duck.
I am a dog
says the fox;

I am too fat
says the mantis;
hardly alive, says the virus,
I'm almost nothing at all.

16. AT THE CUSP OF OLD AGE

To pass the time before she calls the ambulance
I shall write poems for several years.

I imagine they'll come to get me
just after I've mastered the simplest Bach prelude

(the one on your cell phone in C)
--if I'm unlucky that will take decades--

In clean white coats these professional
strangers will tell her I'm sorry,

It's too late to help him
(This I've known for over sixty years)

Until then, Mozart, Bach, Shakespeare and
fucking up trying to make others happy;

"a crippled no one" passing time. They're here!
Still writing? They'll just have to wait.


ADDENDUM: THE MIRACLE

My brother-in-law's
aunt is a saint--no kidding;
she was canonized in 2008,
the first Indian, ever.

She apparently didn't say much,
suffered a lot, taking
on the ills of others
and dying young from cancer.

"Did she ever do a miracle
for you?" "Yes, once."
We're eating at breakfast
nul puttu with coconut milk;

it is delicious.
"When I was young,(Aunty
had just died) while
shopping in a dusty village

just beyond Trivandrum,
I became very thirsty--
Amma forgot to take water--
Alphonsa Aunty, I begged,

please help me now--
At that moment a coconut
fell from a tree overhead!"
Don't say a word,

doubting Thomas--
You don't believe in miracles
yet you believe in God;
what kind of logic is that?

"Since then I have no doubts."
The Dawkins in me now
chooses not to analyze;
I, too, shopping for miracles

beneath God's indifferent sun,
had become very dry.
Who cares how it happened?
Thirst's gone.

EIGHT POEMS FROM INDIA

1. DOOMED GARDEN

Innocenter poppy
hopelessly in love

briefly turns spectacular--
Light is different, though

Mayfly thinks he'll live forever--
O plaster Mother of God,

pity us! Secularer mantis,
negotiate a rose.


2. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT

(Pity in a grasshopper;
compassion in a frog;
mercy in a mockingbird;
agape in a shark?

No; not even saints perceive
justice in a cabbage)
Disinterested kindness;
You--in an ape like me?

3. VERY DISTANT COUSINS,

Maggots, on a windowsill
or in forgotten cheese,
I have come to join you now;

it has been my ambition
to metamorphosize
into something different;

why not to a fly?
Spider-and-a-human being
isn't better off:

caught in my own web
with too much venom
to accept my cross--

One day I'll have wings?
Larvae cannot writhe
in spoiled cheese forever--

I'll be a happy insect
innocently circling trash
much as I do now

but without shame and guilt.
Silly maggot, all is one,
recluse spider, fly.

4. YUM YUM

She moves her hand
from chest to mouth
repeatedly--

This means she wants tea.
Sometimes she does this
while saying, "Yum Yum"--

This means she's hungry.
Today we gave her
an opened box of

Suriya frosting,
nul puttu and clothes.
She might be 65, who knows?

50 plus or 70.
She is very bent and small;
I'm told she has

drunkards for sons, and
daughters beaten by
others' drunkard sons--

(My wife and I have visited
family in Chennai
twelve times since 1976--

They used to have a boy
about twelve years old
who lived with them;

Santishan washed and swept and cooked
and slept on the kitchen floor.
Later, he went mad.

Tamil sevants
have it somewhat better now--
That's progress, I suppose.)

Right now, Yum Yum's washing dishes;
After that, I watch her
disappear into a gaggle

of joggers in Reeboks.
A man talks with his broker
on a mobile--She slips;

her package falls in front of him.
He shouts and kicks it to the side,
as if she were a cow.


5. MY SOAP'S NAME IS VIDYA

My toothbrsh, Calhoun;
my mouthwash is
anonymous
during dry monsoons,
otherwise he's Roger.

What shall I be called?
Hieronymus the Poetaster,
the Master of Silence
from Beethoven Mu?
I call my self Treasure.

Please, says Hank Wall,
be quiet, be quiet,
be quiet, be quiet,
no one is no one
and no one is all.


6. GOA HAIKU

A woman of great beauty
passes by a fountain;
water flows.


7. THE SENSECENT GURU

I have had a hard life;
I wouldn't recommend it.
Yet, bent and frail at ninety-five,
I still don't want to end it.

Listen--if you're young and strong
and want to check out early:
compared to nothing, nothing's wrong
and even hell's gate's pearly.


8. I'M DONE

I'm shoveling anger,
a life-winter's snow.
Before all is ice,

frozen rage, Ego's
deep desires, go--
My path is clear. I'm done.

THE BOHEMIAN GIRL

I am not sure if this little essay will mean anything to those who are not "d"un certain age," but it just might. The subject is rather sad, at least nostalgic: the passage of time, the passage of something inside us--and soon, everything--the passage of us. This came to me in a very direct, and emotional way when I heard, last night, a performance of Balfe's (once) famous aria, "I Dreamt that I Dwelt in Marble Halls," from his (once) famous opera, "Bohemian Girl," which had its debut in London in 1843. This particular performance was from a movie of--who would have guessed it? Laurel and Hardy. Not one of their best, "Bohemian Girl" was made in 1936, and follows the plot of the opera with some zany inserts. (This indicates how popular the song was as late as 1936. Laurel and Hardy made another opera adaption, Fra Diavolo, based on an opera by Auber--who, like, Balfe, is forgotten today.)
It is a very personal song for me. My grandmother, Ella Dorsett, died in 1944, the year before I was born. I know liitle more than three things about her: she was very, very poor; she was very, very obese; and Balfe's aria was her very favorite piece of music in the world. She was simple, and uneducated--how did she get to know an aria from an English opera written a century previous to hers? I think I know. When I was young, there was an abandoned theatre two blocks away from me--who could imagine a theatre ever being in the outskirts of my very working-class home town, Jersey City? But there it was. I was a bit of a "gamin" in those days--I was about ten at the time when we and a few other street kids used to break into the building and explore it. This was my very first view of a stage, albeit a stage in ruins. I remember staring at it, fascinated. Later, I knew enough about history to realize that this was a stage that had been used in the vaudeville days, probably from early in the century to the 1940s, I'm not sure. I have no doubt that Balfe's song was performed on that stage and all over the country during that period, it was that popular. (It was a hit among the so-called "low brows" and "high brows"--an example of the latter is a mention of it in Joyce's "The Dubliners.") My grandmother probably first heard it in a music hall in Hoboken, where she was born. My father worked in a music hall in Hoboken when he was a teenager, so he probably heard it there too.
I don't know if I love or hate the song--yes, I do, my feeling is more close to love. It is a very catchy tune, one that can easily become what Germans call an "Ohrwurn," that is, an earworm, something that has the ability to bore into the brain and repeat itself over and over again. This music can drive you crazy! It is unabashedly sentimental, over the top enough to invite parody--and I did indeed sing to myself a parody of this song when I was a young teenager. ("...I could boast of a highly incestral name; but the thing, you dodos, which pleased me most, was that you drove my mother insane, that you drove that poor shady old lady insane...etc." My friend Brian--where is he now after half a century?-- invented an even racier version, as teenagers will. Spike Jones would have had fun with this music.) It is a song that is both beautiful and ridiculous, and that is precisely the point. It is not great enough to transcend the times when it was written and the century of popularity that followed. It is, we must admit, kitschy. That's precisely why I find it so very moving; it sometimes can, like it did last night, move me to tears.(I don't have the best ear, but, after hearing it last night, I went directly to the piano and got everything right. It is that simple.)
Have you ever read Guy de Maupassant's short story, "The Minuet?" That and Sherwood Anderson's "The Egg" are among my very favorites. In the French story, the narrator watches an elderly couple dance a minuet. They were darlings of the French court once, a court that long since ceased to exist. They are old, decrepit, and their movements are now clumsy. Their dance, the minuet, has been completely out of fashion for decades. The people of Maupassant's day laughed at it. Inside the old folks are still living in the ancien regime; inside they still might feel some of the glory of those days--but they are a wreck of what they once were. They evoke pity. Suddenly the narrator sees what time does to us: the once strong building decays, collapses; the rubble is removed and absolutely nothing is left. The narrator is deeply moved by this old couple; traces of great beauty still remain. The narrator states that he has been a soldier and has seen young men die horrifically; yet, nothing has filled him with such terror as this poignant dance. He sees in a flash what is going to happen to him, to all of us.
"I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marle Halls," evokes such feelings in me. I was born just after this song became a curiosity, after being a major hit for over a century. As I wrote, part of me still finds this music beautiful; no doubt anyone born after me--at least those who are musically discriminating, including the other part of me--finds the song ridiculous.
Bach was forgotten. The next generation abandoned counterpoint and found his works crabbed and stuffy. When Mendelssohn reintroduced him to the larger public, around the time Balfe wrote his opera, Bach's star rose in the cultural heavens and has remained one of first magnitude ever since. The problem with Balfe is that the music is charming, but far from immortal.
Balfe was extremely popular in his day, especially in England, France and Italy. These days he is just about completely forgotten.
Much of what is beloved by a generation does not stand the test of time. (And, of course, some things that do stand the test of time were ignored by the generation in which they arose.) I realize that much of what formed me in the 1940s and 1950s is passing away forever. All right I'll say it: the young do not understand.And perhaps they shouldn't. Most of us think we are somehow precious, but, like the song, we are does not transcend our time. What we think is important might be deemed by the next generation to be quite kitschy and maudlin. We will be completely forgotten. Those of us who are old are dancing that tragic--and tragically comical--minuet, and will very soon be nothing but dust.
But let's not go too far with the tragedy, Thomas. You, like many people of your generation, are active to a degree that was unthinkable during Balfe's time. You dance, you play music, write poems and take delight in your lovely wife, son, family and friends. You've made it, Mr. Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!! Doomed nevertheless.


Addendum: A review of the recording of this song available on YouTube. Joan Sutherland's is the best. Yes, she is one of the past century's divas, but not always one of my favorites. Sometimes her approach strikes me as a bit too "warbly"--too precious. And her Italian diction was so consonant-less that I found it difficult to understand--I always make it a point to understand the words of operas. Here, her extraordinary technique and phrasing is amazing, even breathtaking. A marvelous performance! Jessye Norman, larger than life, always reminds me of a great African queen, even a deity. She does not embellish the second stanza of the song, as Joan Sutherland effectively does. All in all, this is a rather too self-conscious performance, even though her voice is exquisite. A singer named Sissel, unfamiliar to me, gives a folksy rendition, accompanied by some updating chords that Balfe never wrote. This is quite proper, since this melody was popular with both classical and non-classical music fans. It is sweet. Sutherland's rendition is by far the best musically, but I find the version by someone named Sumi Jo the most moving in the sense of the subject of my essay. She is someone in her fifties--and looks it-- dressed as someone in her twenties or thirties. Her voice is sweet and expressive too. Her version is the most evocative of that poor old couple dancing the minuet.

And, as another addendum, here is a recording of me playing this beautiful song on the piano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or4PgO6MtII

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

I am an old white man, Mr. President; if statistics are to be believed, I should consider you to be as annoying as Bob Dole was when he ushered in the present Era of Erectile Dysfunction Commercials. I do not fit the stereotype--(If I did, the title of this would probably be "Open Letter to Barack Husein Obama.") I still believe you've got game. I just want to see some more slam dunks.
First, let us flash back to the presidential campaign of 2008. I was discussing politics with a group of friends--We're from Baltimore, so I guess it's not surprising, national statistics notwithstanding, that I am an ardent Democrat. Some of us supported Hilary Clinton, others, including my wife and me, thought you were the better candidate. One friend said, "He might be better, but America will never elect a black president." I, ever hopeful, thought it was indeed possible. I also said that if you won my wife and I, avid dancers, would take our portable radio outside and dance a rumba on the street, which we in fact did. What an historic victory! (Mr. President, of course we didn't vote for you just because you are black--Fact is, though, that I--the old white man, remember?--am married to a brown person from India and have an adopted black son who was born in Chicago--see if you can make statistics out of that! Let us just say that the fact that you are black wasn't exactly a deterrent for us.)
I am writing this letter to offer a little criticism to help assure that my wife and I will be doing the rumba in 2012.
Now let's flash forward to my group of friends the day you made the compromise on the extension of the tax cuts. We were so angry that we made Anthony Weiner and Bernie Sanders seem as calm as two young men from Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo dancing a pas de deux from the Nutcracker. But we soon calmed down. True, most Americans opposed the tax cut for the rich but not by a wide margin. More important, though, is the fact that the voting public gave our party "a shellacking" in the last election. Yes, you had to compromise with a party which would sabotage, among other worthy initiatives, any extension of much-needed unemployment insurance. We still love you--but please don't take us for granted!
You mentioned in a recent press conference all your achievements since becoming president. It is indeed a formidable list; I am indeed proud of what you have accomplished so far. Well, here comes the criticism, and I think you know what's coming: how is it that someone with your communication skills has been unable to inform the public of what you want to do and what you have done?
Mr. President, I admire your intellect and ability to negotiate. Yet if you fail to counteract the "disinformation campaign" of your opponents, you will not be nearly as effective as you can be. We need you! My wife and I do not want to be doing our next rumba in the basement!
The Republican Party knows it has to twist the truth to get elected, since most Americans are not wealthy. They are experts in psychological warfare, masters of the little phrases--e.g. death panels, death taxes--that infect the minds of many good, yet woefully misinformed people. Fighting against this propaganda machine is essential if you want to achieve more. If it is so distasteful to you, at least delegate this important function to others.
I will close with one suggestion about how you can do this. You have heard what many people say--namely that you are a socialist and an advocate of Big Government. Untrue! I am convinced that you are a passionate supporter of capitalism. You know as well as I that without it we would no longer be the innovators that we are. Why not present yourself as such? Why not say that capitalism in order to function well needs periodic tune-ups like our cars? Why not say that you also oppose big government, but demand that we have the minimal government necessary so that capitalism doesn't disintegrate into oligarchy? If you fought back like this you would also be distinguishing yourself from many opponents: you would be telling the truth.
Maybe you have learned from past mistakes and are planning to vigorously fight back against those who are distorting you record. I sincerely hope so.
By the way, my wife has just informed me that we will not be dancing the rumba outside our house in 2012. Despite the mid-term "shellacking," she has full confidence in your ability to turn things around. If you do, in the name of the American people, she has decided--and I heartily agree--that we should perform a uniquely American dance. In 2012, Mr. President, we expect to swing. Please don't let us down.

EINSTEIN AND FAITH

No, not that type of faith. (If you're interested in Einstein's religious beliefs, look elsewhere.) I'm writing about faith in one's own intuition--the belief that "one's gut felling" reflects reality. I'm using Einstein as an example of how one's intuition can sometimes be right, sometimes wrong, and what significance this realization might have for the rest of us. This is not an article about physics, but I will need to discuss briefly his achievements and failures, since his intuition played a key role in each.

AN OVERVIEW OF EINSTEIN'S ACHIEVEMENTS

When one thinks of the outstanding artists, musicians, and authors--to name just a few categories--of the past century, one will probably come up with several candidates for each field. If one is asked to name the most famous scientist of the twentieth century, I doubt if there would be any competition: Einstein. His theories of special relativity and general relativity revolutionized science and greatly expanded our knowledge of the cosmos in unexpected new directions. Before Einstein, all physicists--to my knowledge, at least--believed that Newton's Laws were valid under all circumstances. There was a problem, though, that became apparent: the speed of light. It had already been determined to be about 186,000 miles per second before the century began. But according to Newton's Laws if one were traveling in the same direction as the light in question, at, say, 50,000 miles per second, one should perceive the light, logically, to be traveling at 136, 000 miles per second. This was proven not to be the case: light, no matter the frame of reference, always travels at the same speed. It had been thought that light travels through a substance called the (luminiferous) ether, just as sound travels through air. But since light travels always at the same speed no matter the direction, the ether put up no resistance to light and was therefore proven not to exist. Einstein solved the mystery in 1905 with his special relativity--that is relativity without considering gravity. The more one speeds up the more time slows and space shrinks. The person in that frame of reference wouldn't notice, since everything shrinks proportionally. We don't notice the relativity of time and space because it only becomes apparent at very fast speeds. Yes, what you learned in high school is correct: a space traveler who traveled at a very fast speed might return to earth with an age now, say, ten years less than the twin he left behind. Einstein also discovered that the speed of light was the upper limit of speed possible. At the speed of light, time stops, but to reach this speed is impossible for non-elementary particles, because the mass that is traveling would acquire an infinite value. (Not an easy job, pushing along something that heavy!) Einstein ten years later discovered many of the mysteries of gravity. Namely that it is transmitted at the speed of light--(Newton had thought gravity's effects were instantaneous--According to Newton, if the sun suddenly disappeared, the effect of gravity would disappear instantaneously with it. Einstein's equations correctly predicted that there would be an eight or so minute pause for earthlings to become aware of the sun's disappearance, since it would take the speed of light that long to bring us that information.) Gravity warps the fabric of space; objects obey gravity much the same way as a roulette ball follows the groove of the roulette wheel. Space is therefore a thing, not nothing. All these discoveries of Einstein are truly mind-boggling, ground-breaking achievements. No other scientist of the twentieth century changed our views so radically and single-handedly. (Quantum mechanics progressed as science usually does, as a sum of contributions from many individual scientists.)

EINSTEIN'S INTUITION

Intuition is a prominent factor in scientific progress. For instance, the belief that the universe is "elegant," has made many scientists believe that the most elegant equations reflect reality, years before the equations in question have been corroborated by data. In modern physics, for instance, the belief that symmetry underlies the cosmos has led to exciting new discoveries and theories. I am not sure, but I don't believe Einstein intuited the relativity of time and space prior to his discoveries. Einstein's intuition was very much right in its belief that the enigma of the speed of light could be solved. Many of his hunches that sprang from his intuition, however, were wrong, some of which, interestingly, proved right for the wrong reasons. I shall explain this later in this article.

Einstein worked with large entities and not sub-atomic ones. He was thus following the footsteps of Newton, who discovered the laws of gravity and motion some three hundred years earlier. Like Newton, he believed in absolutes. A matter of fact, he didn't want to call his theory the theory of of relativity but the theory of invariance. Space and time might indeed be relative entities, but they were part of a spacetime unit that was absolute. Like Newton, he believed that any traveling thing had both a specific velocity and a specific position at any instant; if they could not be determined it was the fault of the technology. Similarly, it was a matter of faith for him to believe that everything is determined. He would not have disputed LaPlace, who asserted that if you knew the velocity and position of everything, everything could be predicted. Einstein's famous formulation in response to the discoveries of quantum physics was "God does not play dice." Quantum physics not only asserted the random basis of the micro-world, but that velocity and position of an elementary particle could not be simultaneously determined, not because of inadequate technology, but because of the fuzzy nature of quantum reality. Einstein would have none of this; his insight was fixed. He was, of course, wrong in this regard; the randomness and non-locality of quantum events have been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. It was ironic--Einstein's intuition helped him to make great discoveries, but hindered him from acknowledging the discoveries of quantum physics. His intuition told him that although quantum physics made accurate predictions, it was not basic--something that underlies it, presumably demonstrating the victory of determinism, was yet to be discovered. Not so! It is now thought that quantum physics is primary; we live in a quantum world, as physicists say.

Because of his refusal to acknowledge discoveries that ran counter to his intuition, Einstein became more and more marginalized. One wag said that not long after his discovery of general relativity, Einstein, who lived many more years, might as well have gone fishing. This is a bit unfair, but there is truth to it. Who knows what Einstein would have discovered if his intuition had let him keep pace with new discoveries?

Newton's system remained unquestioned for three-hundred years after his death. Einstein, alive during an epoch during which physics developed rapidly, was not so lucky. Quantum physics, which ran counter to his intuition, developed while he was still very much alive. It is difficult to speak of this as a tragedy, for Einstein was often wrong in such a way that helped advance science. For instance, by his intuition he was convinced that the universe was static and eternal, even though his equations of general relativity only allow a universe to be either expanding or contracting. To get around this, Einstein came up with the idea of the cosmological constant, a repulsive force to counteract either contraction or expansion. He provided no science behind this; it simply allowed his intuition to be right. Later, when it was discovered that the universe was expanding, Einstein abandoned the constant and viewed it as a great mistake. Much later on, it has been discovered that there is indeed a cosmological repulsive force that is causing the universe to be in a state of accelerated expansion. Thus, Einstein was right for the wrong reason. Another example of faulty intuition: Einstein was convinced that there was no such thing as what he called, "spooky action at a distance." In 1935 he devised the famous EPR thought experiment that he believed proved that even at the quantum level position and velocity could not be random variables. The EPR experiment encouraged others to work on this problem; eventually the concept of quantum entaglement was proven, disproving Einstein's belief. If one entangled elementary particle was determined to have a certain spin, the other entangled particle would instantly correspond before something traveling at the speed of light could reach it. Beyond all doubt, "spooky action at a distance," occurs in the quantum world. His later intuitions were not always wrong, however: Einstein worked in his last decades on a theory of unification of all forces. Unfortunately, there are four cosmic forces, and two were yet to be discovered during Einstein's lifetime, so all his efforts had to fail. Today many physicists are at work trying to realize Einstein's dream of unification. His belief that all the forces of the universe can be unified is an intuition, although not yet proven, which most modern physicists believe to be correct.

SUMMARY

We are convinced that our "gut feeling" reflect truth. I wanted to prove in this article that this is not necessarily so--intuition can be a great help but it can also be a great hindrance. Einstein is a great example of this fact of life. How can the insight that we might sometimes need to change our intuition help us? Examples abound. Researchers of depression, notable Paul Gilbert, have discovered that depressives have the intuition, the gut feeling, that their emotional state will never improve. For instance, a widower whose only child dies might become depressed and contemplate suicide, imagining that his life is over. Five years later, he might find himself remarried with step-children. This will of course not replace his loss, but he might well have come to the realization that his life has become worthwhile again. One needs to go no further to find another good example than by listening to pundits on the right and left debate. They almost always talk past each other and never consider that the other person might have a point. They are fixed in their political intuition--obviously each opposing position can't be completely right! Additional examples: does your intuition tell you, say, that there is free will and that you are a self, a separate entity? Your intuition just might be wrong!

As Buddhism and Hinduism have taught us, the world is in a constant state of flux. Nothing is fixed, certainly not intuition. We must find the balance in trusting it and, if need be, changing it to better accomodate reality.

Let me finish with an example of an open mind, the willingness to change when confronted with convincing data which oppose one's intuition. The prominent physicist Brian Greene in his book, "The Fabric of the Cosmos" states that although his intuition makes him think time-travel to be very unlikely, at this moment the possiblily remains that--a possiblilit--albeit a remote one. Greene states, however, that he will keep an open mind and would be willing to modify his view as a result of future discoveries.


Yes, as they say, even Homer nods. Though Einstein's stature is unassailable, I think it best to follow Greene's example regarding intuition. None of us can ever be absolutely right about anything; it might be a little frightening for us to admit this, but without this admission we can miss out on something that makes life a delight: the wonder of new discoveries about the world and about ourselves. For intuition is not a god, but a vehicle: if it takes us off the road it might be time to get a new one. The road ahead might seem unneogtiable at first without our trusty old car, but the initial anxiety might be well worth trading it in for something that will take us wondrously in a new direction.

FRANCO-GERMANIC COMPLEMENTARITY

FRANCO-GERMANIC COMPLEMENTARITY

In the Thanksgiving (2010) edition of the New York Times, the journalist Robert Wright wrote in the op-ed section that he sometimes finds it difficult to be thankful, but there is at least one thing he’s happy about: becoming a journalist so he could vent his negative side by writing about the so many things that are wrong with the current state of politics in this nation and elsewhere. He then went on to count his nonblessings--and, alas! ours, by providing the following list:

1. The New Start treaty--which just about every analyst, Democratic or Republican, says would make America more secure--is on the verge of being sunk by a few senators for partisan reasons, 2. This is symptomatic of intense political polarization, bitter division that is paralyzing our politics 3. Some of America’s divisions, dangerously, are falling along ethnic lines…

Nonblessings indeed! There always seems to be a lot of reasons for unhappiness. It also seems sacrilegious to attempt to cover up life's bitter taste with sugary diversions or saccharine consolations. The list of sad things, unfortunately, is not limited to the harm inflicted by partisan politics on us all. The need to write this essay arose from the deep sadness a friend and I feel regarding the mass extinctions of animals caused by the greed and ignorance of humankind. There is no place for animal lovers to hide these days, the extinctions are unprecedented, unless we include the Permian extinction and the meteor that killed the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago. But sadness mustn't cause us to loser our balance--if we do, who is going to pick us up? I admit I’m a bit of a depressive type; thinking about the animals’ misery--and ours--might indeed lead to a crippling emotional paralysis. But I am not displeased--dare I say “thankful”--for the serious side of my nature. It helps one plumb the depths of humanity and can inspire one to change the world for the better. As a matter of survival, however, the serious part of my nature demands periodic relief. It also insists that the relief not be provided by sugar but by substance. These two sides, namely, facing life as it is but also experiencing life at its best is what I call Franco-Germanic Complementarity, the subject of this essay. It is written not only for people who are overly serious but for people who aren’t serious enough. First, a few words about complementarity in general.

Complementarity

Niels Bohr, the great physicist, was the first to use this term regarding the startling discoveries of quantum physics, a field to which he contributed a great deal. Light proved to be either a wave or a particle, depending on the experimental hoops to which one subjects photons. The wave and particle functions are complementary. Bohr was fond of using complementarity in other fields, especially those dealing with the human psyche, which is often as perplexing as quantum physics. For instance, do human beings possess free will or are they determined? Bohr considered both aspects as complementary--there may be no room for free will in a scientific analysis, but the assumption of free will is essential for any inner life to have meaning. Is there a God or none? Look outside, there is none; look inside deeply and one may be confronted by what at least feels like transcendence. Are we good or evil? Bohr says you will find what you are looking for, and what you find might leave room for another one to find the direct and complementary opposite. Opposites, in a modern updating of the medieval coincidentia oppositorum, can be complementary; in fact, according to Bohr, the deepest levels of existence have a complementary aspect.

Franco-Germanic Complementarity

First of all, I am writing about types here--I do not mean to say that all Germans fit into one category and that all French fit into the opposite. I am generalizing for the sake of argument, in full knowledge that there is some truth to the generalization. The generalization is this: German culture at its best tends to plumb life to its depths, even if this activity leads to greater sadness, even despair, while French culture at its best is by no means superficial but, emphasizing savoir-vivre, shies away from being too negative. Anna Russell, the great musician-comedienne, said it best--or at least acted it out best. She said German lieder made you feel “UUUUH!"--she sounded as if she were about to die-- while French art songs made you feel, “Heh Heh Heh” --which she said in a high-pitched voice, sounding like an imp. There is some truth in this caricature. German culture has produced arguably the most profound music ever written. It was no means an arbitrary decision to send a recording of Bach's music into outer space, which we did. If intelligent creatures ever find it, we want to be sure that the hear an example of some of the best things mankind has produced so far. The subject of the opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, in which Bach is at his most sublime, is the crucifixion of Christ, specifically mankind’s guilt for this crime, and, by implication, the guilt and horror resulting from the sufferings of the innocent inflicted by sinful humanity, examples of which have certainly not abated. Whenever I hear this chorus, I am profoundly moved, often to the point of tears. Bach’s despair was tempered by his faith--he, as a good Lutheran, believed in the Resurrection; later German culture was able--and I’m not saying this was progress--to plumb the depths of sorrow without the consolation of faith. A prime example of this is Schubert’s “Die Winterreise,” “The Winter Journey,” which, I think, contains some of the saddest music ever written. No other culture, in my opinion, could have written music like this. But does it go too far? I remember reading an author who believed that Schubert’s passion for alienation--suicidal alienation--evident in this music hastened his death, a debatable point. There have been moods of mine, which many share I’m sure, which find their awful, beautiful, mesmerizing counterparts in music such as this. But there is also something very prominent in me, as well as in others, that will not allow me to walk away into oblivion with the barefoot organ grinder of the harrowing last song of the cycle. At these moments something inside tells me, “It’s time to cross the Rhine.” Profundity is good, indeed, but not despair. I will illustrate this dichotomy with an example from French culture, and one from the German.

Let’s start with the German. Alois Zimmermann wrote in the early 1950s one of the most influential post-war German operas, “die Soldaten,” “The Soldiers.” The plot involves a greedy father who forces his daughter into marrying an influential, but morally questionable, officer. She knew it was a bad idea, but had to obey her father. The officer mistreats her. The regiment, in his presence and with his consent, gang-rapes her--on stage. She becomes a prostitute. At the end of the opera, she passes her father on the street; she has become so debased that he fails to recognize her. At this point, in the New York City Opera performance, a voice came from a speaker in the back of the opera house. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like, “See, human beings, this is what you do with your greed and arrogance…” I felt that I was addressed by an angry--justifiably angry--God. It was a very profound theatrical experience for me, but not a very happy one. (Zimmermann committed suicide shortly after he finished the piece.) If I continued to live in this realm, however, my life would become the "UUUUH!” of the Anna Russell satire. To keep my equilibrium, I periodically must cross the Rhine.

The French example I will give is not by the wonderful Ravel or Debussy; it is a song, "Quand Un Vicompte," a song immortalized by Maurice Chevalier. Now if you are only used to American culture I give you this important piece of information: Chevalier did his sentimental shtik for Americans. I am not talking about such frothy things as “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” or “Gigi.” In France, Maurice Chevalier did things that have a bite, a deep one. The lyrics of the song are very similar in spirit to the prophetic words of the German opera. The subject of the song is human selfishness and egotism. The words go something like this: When a count meets anther count, they’re only interested in count-stories--he then goes through a list of people: homosexuals are only interested in homosexual stories; cripples are only interested in cripple-stories, bigots only in bigot-stories, etc. The refrain states that nobody cares about the little miseries of his neighbor and is only interested in himself. This would be a fitting subject for miserably profound Teutonic treatment. (If you haven’t heard Maurice Chevalier sing this song, I recommend that you do--it can be downloaded from the Internet for the price of $.89--well worth it! His phrasing and timing is impeccable.) He begins with a laugh as he lists examples of human selfishness. As the list goes on, he laughs harder at our follies. (By this time a German composer would be musically--and beautifully-- hitting us, hurting us even.) At the end, Chevalier is laughing almost uncontrollably. Then comes the final, crucial sentence--I don’t remember the exact words but it can be summed up as follows: “What to do? One has to keep on living, despite everything!” This for me is a very beautiful and profound moment. Thank you Maurice Chevalier! And thank you Ravel and Debussy, and to the French spirit everywhere, whether expressed by Italians, Germans, Americans or Russians!

And thanks to Bach and Wagner too--and to the German spirit everywhere, whether expressed by Italians, Germans, Americans or Russians! We need Franco-Germanic complementarity; we need to keep our balance. Drink deeply from the Pierian Spring? Yes, indeed, but if leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, as it sometimes will, stop drinking for a while and listen to, say, Debussy.

Tonight I will write to my friend and have another discussion of human and non-human misery. Perhaps we can inspire each other to do something about it--but that is tonight. Tomorrow I will get up and play Haydn on the piano. (Q: Was that great Austrian composer a Francophile? A: You betcha.)

A Review of "Flights of Love" by Bernhard Schlink

A REVIEW OF ‘FLIGHTS OF LOVE’ BY BERNHARD SCHLINK


I must admit, reading Berhard Schlink’s 2000 short story collection, Flights of Love, that I was torn between two extremes. The first pole was the deservedly successful novel, The Reader. Schlink is at his best when writing a story that has political or at least social overtones. The danger is that his writing can degenerate into novels of ideas, not novels of character. He is, in fact, not at his best at creating vivid characters. But one of the protagonists in The Reader, Hanna Schmitz, is indeed vividly portrayed and her story illustrates the mess Germans got themselves into with fascism. Here good ideas and a good story are felicitously combined. The other extreme was the review I read of Schinck’s latest novel, The Weekend. Although I haven’t yet read it, the reviewer, Ian Buruma, panned it as a dull, lifeless novel of ideas. My impression was he might indeed be right. After reading this collection of short stories, however, I am pleased to say that my opinion of "Flights of Love" is much closer to the first pole than to the second.

I recently read an article that states that although the German economy is doing much better at the moment than the American, the Germans remain a somewhat pessimistic people. Though I tend to eschew broad generalizations, there is some truth to this. (The upside to this is that Germans tend to tackle serious themes in their art, and are, to a greater degree that other cultures, more prone to consider art to be more than mere entertainment. It is undoubtedly true that some of the most profound works of art--especially in music--have been written by Germans or Austrians.) Schlink, indeed, is almost always serious. But the stories also entertain and make you think, a winning combination.

First of all, I’m not sure the English title is the best translation. (I read the book in the original German.) In German, “Liebesfluchten,” means “Aligning Love” --in other words, the attempt to realign oneself to, or to reconnect with, love. It has nothing to do with the similarly written German word, die Flucht, or, flight. Each story has something to do with a mostly futile attempt to find love, especially to rekindle a love that has grown cold. They have nothing to do with emotional soaring, as the English title implies.

The theme of the book is the extreme difficulties one faces in the attempt to find happiness, some of which are indeed made worse by egotism and inordinate desire.

I enjoyed all the stories, but especially was moved by the first story, The Woman with the Lizard, and one of the last, the Son. One has to do with the Nazi past of the protagonist’s father. A painting in his father’s study, The Woman with the Lizard, turns out to the work of a Jewish artist who was active in Germany during the Weimar Republic. The artist tried to flee Nazi Germany when it was too late--the war had already begun. He tried to escape into France through Strasbourg, where the protagonist’s father was a Nazi judge. The painter was never heard from again and the painting wound up in the father's study. What exactly happened? We never find out, and that’s the master stroke of the story. It reflects the silence of the protagonist’s father’s generation regarding their and their country’s terrible history. The mother insinuates that her husband had sex with the wife of the painter, who presumably did everything she could to save herself and her husband. Some of the father’s Nazi past becomes public, although we are not told exactly what he is accused of; he loses his job and eventually succumbs to alcoholism. At the end, after the father’s death, the protagonist asks his mother whether the father came home and raped her. The mother denies it, and cries in desperation. She is an emotional cripple, and we suspect, that the father was guilty of horrendous crimes. What a dreadful silence poisons the family! The silence is so thick that is never penetrated--The holes that remain in the story line reflect the holes in the family members' lives. At the end,the protagonist burns the painting. The implication perhaps is that it is deadly to keep such a past alive--the best thing is to start anew. Not so easy! One recalls Wiesel’s statement that the next worst thing to being born of parents who perished in the Holocaust is to be born of parents who made it possible. This is a German story at its best; it is well written and gets one to think.

The other story I especially liked was The Son. The protagonists of all the stories are mostly successful as professionals and failures in the art of life, and this one proved to be no exception. I found it very moving. A German peace maker, one of the “twelve apostles of peace” is sent to a rebellion-torn Spanish-speaking country to negotiate a peace between rebels and the military. They were supposed to be taken on the first day, by jeep, to a provincial capital. They do not make it. They spend the night at a church ruined by fire, presumably during the current civil war. Germans love their symbolism and the ruined church obviously refers to the impossibility of finding transcendence in the modern world, but the symbol is not presented in a heavy-handed way and fits in the plot organically. War is raging around them; the guard outside the church is shot. The protagonist, referred to as the German and never by name, thinks of his son, a doctor. He loves his son deeply; the danger around him makes him think of what’s important in life. The problem, as in many of the stories, is that the protagonist never acts as forcibly as he feels. He considers himself to have been a failure as a father. He recalls a vacation with his son, when his son was small, which was abruptly ended by his former wife and her new husband. He defers to the courts but knows love in this case demanded stronger action. Now, so many years later, he phones his son and tells him he cares for him a lot, something he was always too shy to say. His son, embarrassed, says he must return to work and to call when he gets back home. Another failure! And there are more. The situation in the unnamed country turns very serious; the German is given a pistol. It is taken from him by a drunken colleague who, afraid of the danger, tries to force the officers to turn back. Some more subtle symbolism: the German has a pistol, a phallic symbol, but is not a man of action--it is taken from him. The gun fires and the German is mortally wounded. He dies, thinking of his son who will never know his father’s last loving thoughts. It is a very poignant tale that has two morals: 1) it’s later than you think and 2) stop thinking all the time and act. It is a tale that is both evocative and beautifully told.

The other five stories are all well worth reading. Even if his latest novel is a bad as Ian Buruma thinks it is, we judge authors on their successes and not on their relative failures. Two Gentlemen of Verona is not the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking of Shakespeare. Schlink is certainly no Shakespeare, but is still, at his best, an essential read.




Thomas Dorsett