Science Friday Archives: Weaving ‘Charlotte’s Web’

Was excited to tune in to NPR's "Science Friday" yesterday and hear old friend Michael Sims discussing his Story of Charlotte's Web... even more excited to learn that he's working on a book about Thoreau and Walden. It'll be great. Can't wait.
Science Friday Archives: Weaving ‘Charlotte’s Web’

shipwreck

Thinking about train-wrecks this morning, and the Great Train-Wreck at Dutchman's Curve in 1918-- a line of reflection oddly triggered by the comparatively-trivial derailment in France of Lance Armstrong, puts me in mind of a memorable James quote.

The world may be saved, on condition that its parts shall do their best. But shipwreck in detail, or even on the whole, is among the open possibilities.

Drive safely. Or fly. Or, you could walk.

climb every mountain

It's important to have nonagenerian role-models.

Charles Houston died in September at age 96. He was a physician, an impassioned proponent of universal health care, a humanitarian, and climber. In the 1930s he led an assault on the imposing K2, and survived a catastrophe in which he'd estimated his party's chances to be no more than 1 in 10. He now thinks his friend and climbing-partner Art Gilkey sacrificed himself for the group.

Why climb a mountain? Because it's an adventure, a challenge, and a growth opportunity. We must always try to exceed our reach, and do things we think may be beyond us.

Bill Moyers interviewed him a few years ago. He's an inspiration.



[UPDATE: I didn't realize, when I posted this on Friday morning, that Friday's night's broadcast of Bill Moyers' Journal would be his last. Those are big shoes he's leaving for someone to fill. Friday's Fresh Air was devoted to him. He's now officially supplanted Jimmy Carter as my favorite Southern Baptist. He was already my favorite living Texan. (R.I.P., Molly Ivins.)]

==
And, for the record on this Walpurgisnacht Day:
On this day in 1852, Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal, recording his observations of the woods and fields around Concord, Massachusetts:

"Down the Boston road and across to Turnpike, etc., etc. The elms are now generally in blossom and Cheney's elm still also. The last has leaf-buds which show the white. Now, before any leaves have appeared, their blossoms clothe the trees with a rich, warm brown color, which serves partially for foliage to the street-walker, and makes the tree more obvious. ... It is a beautiful day, — a mild air, — and all farmers and gardeners out and at work. Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden. Yesterday I observed many fields newly plowed, the yellow soil looking very warm and dry in the sun; and one boy had fixed his handkerchief on a stick and elevated it on the yoke, where it flapped or streamed and rippled gaily in the wind, as he drove his oxen dragging a harrow over the plowed field. [...] Dodging behind a swell of land to avoid the men who were plowing, I saw unexpectedly (when I looked to see if we were concealed by the field) the blue mountains' line in the west (the whole intermediate earth and towns being concealed), this greenish field for a foreground sloping upward a few rods, and then those grand mountains seen over it in the background, so blue, —seashore, earth-shore, — and, warm as it is, covered with snow which reflected the sun. Then when I turned, I saw in the cast, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two-thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes. Such a sight excites me. The earth is worthy to inhabit." Writer's Almanac

I am risen

My "experimental" dawn blog Up@dawn is a year old today... and for the first time in a year, it's balking at my attempt to publish. So here's what I was going to say there this morning:


That first cautious post of 4.24.09, "rise and shine," announced a simple plan to keep regular hours and harvest some early thoughts before they've withered under the critical glare of mid-day. The point was motivation, not so much to haul out of bed early-- I  do that by inclination and habit anyway, most days-- but to capture some of those fleeting auroral moments before they evaporate forever; and then notch 'em (like old Thoreau said) on my stick.


My grad school mentor John Lachs taught me to write stuff down before doing anything else, and it's still the most effective writing strategy I know. Rise, write, wake, walk, work, re-write (and, oh yeah, don't forget in the meantime to enjoy life): the  perambulating rhythm of it suits me, and I like the hours.


 The urgencies of academic dailiness took the blog over, when school started in August. The topical agenda each week-day then largely reflected whatever we were to read and discuss in class. But we finished our last required text yesterday in Intro, so I can again pretty much let what Henry would have called the "genius" of every new dawn dictate these posts 'til class cranks up again.


That's a bit scary, but inviting too: I can't wait to see what's on my everyday liminal rising mind at daybreak. Often, not much; but once in a while something will dawn fresh. Least I can do is show up.  As Nietzsche reminds, "There is many a dawn which has not yet shed its light." (Rig Veda)

Emerson on Thoreau

Andrew raised a question yesterday about the state of relations between Emerson and Thoreau, wondering if it was true that the former said unkind things about the latter at his funeral. I think I can disconfirm those rumors. No foolin'...

His robust common sense, armed with stout hands, keen perceptions and strong will, cannot yet account for the superiority which shone in his simple and hidden life. I must add the cardinal fact, that there was an excellent wisdom in him... It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own. He knew every track in the snow or on the ground, and what creature had taken this path before him. One must submit abjectly to such a guide, and the reward was great... No college ever offered him a diploma, or a professor's chair; no academy made him its corresponding secretary, its discoverer or even its member. Perhaps these learned bodies feared the satire of his presence. Yet so much knowledge of Nature's secret and genius few others possessed... The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst of his broken task which none else can finish, a kind of indignity to so noble a soul that he should depart out of Nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what he is. But he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Eulogy of Thoreau (1862)

craving reality

Garrison Keillor was talking about reality biting him in the butt. In his own more elegant nineteenth-century Transcendentalist way of speaking, that's what Henry Thoreau was talking about too. Face-to-face is better. But I'm not sure "we crave only reality" still, here in the 21st century. Reality tee-vee, maybe. Welcome to the cave. (Speaking of which: check out the ursine version of Henry, it's an inspiration. The reality of work need not be drudgery, he reminds us.)

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we

come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business." Walden

wishing caps etc.

Came to class despite strong objections from spouse and daughter ("You look terrible!") and am glad I did. Our discussions of James and Socrates, postponed from Friday, were edifying. And thanks to our volunteer discussion moderators, my voice is still audible.

I was surprised to find how few of us think we'd want to live in James's imaginary "wishing cap" world. (But I'll bet if we asked ourselves how many of us think we could do with a few more fulfilled desires, we'd pretty nearly all line up with WJ... masochists move to the rear, please.)

The contrast between Socrates and Galileo was helpful. The latter gave his accusers what they wanted, a public confession. Only under his breath did he mutter "it (the earth) still moves." Socrates wasn't willing to to be a different person in public than in private, even if it cost him his life.

I love Gabby's brother's unposted tree analogy blog post: "stop worrying about your branches, just grow!"

I confess, I was a bit shocked to discover how few recent High School grads have even heard of William James's younger brother Henry (aka "The Master"); but at least most said they'd encountered Thoreau and Emerson.

And finally, Mike shared with me what may have been the most insightful observation of the day: Socrates chose to die for pedagogical reasons, to spur his fellow Athenians (and eventually you and me) to think about what makes life worth living. With his dying breath he was still teaching, still trying to provoke critical reflection. If that's right, he truly died for philosophy... and for freedom.

And so it's no coincidence that the death of Socrates introduces our next chapter, "The Meaning of Life."

Perspective

New Yorker,  7.27.09

"...there are frogs there--who would fain keep up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave..."

The butterfly of happiness

Two questions:



Did Thoreau really say this?

Is it true?

Summer's end

I'm back, this time from my formerly remote-and-off-the-grid Little House. It was, I suppose, a Luddite summer fantasy to imagine remaining unplugged -- though I'm still not sure I yet have anything vital to communicate to Maine, Texas, and the wider world. But classes are about to resume so I'll be expected to think at least a bit, and so long as I'm obliged to communicate in public I may as well keep this spot warm. The signal out here is low, though, so now I can blame failures to communicate (or communicate well) on the state of wireless technology. My new whine: it's the router.

Anyway: summer was great, we loved Manhattan -- Broadway, the Yankees, the museums -- but it's time to get on with a milder and busier season. (Easier said than done, though this is forecast to be our first sub-100 degree day in a couple of weeks.)

And what would Thoreau say about my air-conditioned, web-connected, cellular-accessible redoubt? Sorry, Henry. Guess I've been seduced by the dark side.

Unplugged

"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

19th century communications technology had already outpaced the human capacity to generate content worth communicating when Thoreau wrote that. Imagine what he'd make of the blogosphere.

Every year about this time, coincident with the end of the school year and the beginning of summer travel, I feel an irresistible urge to unplug from the grid. (It has something, too, to do with the incomparable allure of gorgeous May mornings when there are no school bells to beat, no urgent emails to open, no kids to rouse from bed and compel to eat soggy oatmeal.)

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta (the Chattanooga aquarium is better, btw). I resolutely left the laptop behind, and steered entirely clear of the hotel's "Business Center" computers. That's not exactly a retreat into the Walden woods but I still find it restorative of something vital and personal, and preservative of what I like to think of as my sanity.

And so, I'm happy to report that my primitive, unwired Little House office is working out quite nicely for me so far. I'm not going to boost my signal just yet.

My unsolicited advice to all who daily spend their freshest hour(s) immobilized behind a small screen: unplug. Check the email when you have absolutely nothing better to do. Don't be in such haste to publish your every thought to an inattentive world. (When David Brooks writes something stupid http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/opinion/29brooks.html about Al Gore, for instance, someone else will be sure to call him on it. To wit: http://buchanan.blogs.nytimes.com/
(and also see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-g-brant/al-gore-urges-us-to-think_b_49371.html)

In other words: notch the hours on your stick instead of your keyboard, at least now and then.

The days will be growing longer for just a few more weeks, and I don't want to miss them. I'll be back, but -- for now -- I'll catch you later.

Little Houses (postscript)

It would be a serious omission to speak of Little Houses (as I did in the previous post) but not to mention Thoreau's cabin at Walden. So, consider it duly mentioned.


Thoreau's only regret, Michael Pollan noted in A Place of My Own, was not putting a taller roof on it: "you want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim... Our sentences want room to unfold."

And that's all the hook I need for this pic:



This was pre-new roof, of course. But for just a few minutes at least, my thoughts did have plenty of room to unfold, to follow the "centrifugal impulse... reaching out into the surrounding landscape." The trick is to do that with the roof on.