Dissing the Right Wing:
Nirvana, pt. 4
April 30, 2006
[A picture from Kurt Cobain Journals, pg 116]
Charles Cross in his biography of Kurt Cobain tells of a run-in that Cobain had with Axl Rose of Guns 'n' Roses backstage at an awards show:
Kurt, Courtney, nanny Jackie, and Finnerty were sitting with Frances when Axl Rose walked by, holding hands with his model-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. "Hey Axl," Courtney beckoned, sounding a bit like Blanche Dubois, "will you be the godfather of our child?" Rose ignored her but turned to Kurt, who was bouncing Frances on his knee, and leaned down near his face. As the veins in Axl's neck thickened to the size of a garden hose, he barked: "You shut your bitch up, or I'm taking you down to the pavement!"
The idea that anyone could control Courtney was so laughable that a giant smile came to Kurt's face... He turned to Courtney and ordered, in a robot-like voice: "Okay bitch. Shut up!" This brought a snicker to everyone within earshot... [Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain (2001), pg. 249]
That is a story about clashing rock personalities.. but it happens to point up the difference between 80s heavy metal and the bands that swept to the fore with Nirvana. The difference was not solely in musical style.. as if somehow "alternative music" was present in guitar solos and drum fills.. it also lay in the political and ethical assumptions brought to the music. One could say that Kurt Cobain was playing a "left-wing" version of heavy metal. That political twist may be, in the end, what separates alternative bands of that period from their heavy metal cousins.
Social conservatives might be surprised to learn that Axl Rose is one of them.. and I do not mean to suggest that he is part of the right wing in any programmatic way. What I mean is that rebels must always define themselves against social norms, and that norm for Axl Rose was represented by conservative values. His rebellion—manifested in tattoos, drugs and parties—is clear, but his conformity to conservative standards is equally clear if one examines the values underlying his actions. In the above story Rose appears with a trophy-model girlfriend, refuses to acknowledge Courtney, and absurdly threatens Cobain with physical harm. Imagine, absurd as it may be, that James Dobson had run into Cobain backstage at an awards show. The confrontation would lack the hysterics of an Axl Rose, but many of the same values would still be present. Dobson too would have definite ideas about a healthy male-female relationship and the place of women in a power structure.. he would also have some aggression, although it may come out in a radio show rather than a threat to take Cobain down to the pavement. Axl Rose stands in for thousands.. perhaps millions.. of partying frat boys and troubled rebels.. and when these guys get all that out of their system, as they generally do, they come "back to God" and start living by the conservative standards that always formed the way they saw their world.
Cobain was a rebel of a different kind. We can think of him as a left wing rebel.. that is, the norms which he tacitly adopts.. even as he falls away from them.. are socially liberal. His distaste for the right wing is an oft-stated theme of his journals. In one screed he writes:
...Im far beyond the point of sitting down and casually complaining about this problem to the right wing control freaks who are the main offender of destroying art. I wont calmly and literally complain to you! Im going to fucking kill. Im going to fucking destroy your MACHO, sadistic, sick, Right Wing, religiously abusive opinions on how we as a whole should operate according to your conditions. [120-1]
Oddly that could function as simultaneously an attack on the world of Guns 'n' Roses and James Dobson. In a similar vein Cobain drew the illustration of a soldier in camouflage wearing a football helmet. It seems to be a case of wish fulfillment as he hangs the elements of American culture that he finds most intolerable. This leads him to a mixture of military and sports imagery, tying together jocks and soldiers.
On the same page as the last quotation, Cobain gets around to setting out some of this own values:
I find a few things sacred such as the superiority contributions women and the negro have made to Art. I guess what im saying is that Art is Sacred. punk rock is freedom.
The echo is of William Blake, who was also prone to write fiery statements about Art: "Where any view of Money exists Art cannot be carried on. But War only." Cobain would have agreed wholeheartedly.. and probably added Blake to those endless lists of musical influences. There may well be much to criticize in this view of the world, but my point is that it is proceeding on a wholly different foundation than anything we know as heavy metal.. and it is a repudiation of the values connected to a social conservative such as James Dobson. Nirvana will always remain a seminal band precisely because they point toward a form of rock music which is not indebted to conservative values.. a rebellion whose end will not be admission into a church, but graduation into liberal causes.
The Linear Park on Ponce de Leon Avenue:
Restoring a Park by Olmsted
April 29, 2006
In 1893 Frederick Law Olmsted delivered a plan which included the layout of a linear park running along Ponce de Leon Avenue. The park—or technically string of parks—is visible in the green areas in the map above. At several points Olmsted's characteristic genius for giving long views of green meadow is on display, the trees masking the fact that just beyond lies one of Atlanta's major thoroughfares.
I don't think anyone ever quite envisaged just how busy Ponce de Leon Avenue would become. It is one of many ordinary streets that have been pressed into service as Atlanta has grown exponentially. My guess is that in the original conception, this linear park would have lined a quiet suburban lane.
Even today beautiful old homes line the side of Ponce de Leon Avenue, or the winding parallel South Ponce de Leon. Many of these have been converted into headquarters for non-profit organizations, but they obviously once stood as houses.. and I don't think one builds such houses along major-thoroughfares.
Along the cement paths that run through the parks, the visitor comes across helpful interpretive signs, with old pictures and even bits and pieces of the old plans. I was fascinated to find that Ponce was once envisioned as lined by trees. To the north and south of the park are squares that I take to be the locations for plush houses set back from the quiet street.
The picture above is of the trolley that once ran along Ponce (I am unsure just where the line ran). I take this as further evidence that the area was once a good deal more pastoral in character. For some reason I always find it surprising to learn that choices for public transportation were actually pared back over the course of the 20th century.
One sign that stands facing the cars on Ponce measures the money-raising efforts of the "Olmsted Linear Park Alliance." Their goal is to raise $4.8 million to rehabilitate and care for the park. I could see by their thermometer-style measure that they have almost reached the goal.. and I wish them luck. But I sometimes question the choices. Above is an example of recent landscaping added to the park.. and such additions are present in many spots. The Alliance, I suspect, includes these as part of the 2,600 trees and shrubs added "according to a 1902 Olmsted plan." But this landscaping too often seems aimed at prettifying the path along generally suburban tastes. If anything is notable to me about Olmsted's designs, it is his ability to think in terms of a total experience.. and to use trees and shrubs to open up or close in an environment.. not simply to prettify a walk.
The visitor also comes across the above playground for children. Part of a family-friendly program, I imagine.. which would indeed be nice for those living nearby. But that semi-monumental stone "bridge" really is too much.
Preservation of a historic park presents some interesting issues. First, the notion of authorship is much weaker when it comes to an original design for a park. It is obvious that changes will be made to suit those who now make use of the park, and aesthetic choices to conform to contemporary tastes. Second, the context of the park has been transformed along with the transformation of transportation modes and the population growth of the Atlanta area. The character of Druid Hills cannot be anything like what Olmsted and contemporaries imagined. But the fact that so much money is being successfully collected is wonderful..
When Not to Tear Down a Persian Palace:
Preservation, pt. 1
April 28, 2006
The following is a passage from the 10th century Arabic historian Masudi. It appears in the course of recounting the history of the Persian Sassanian Empire (3rd-7th century AD).
It is related that Harûn al-Rashîd, after the arrest of the Barmakids, sent to Yahya ibn Khâlid ibn Barmak, who was under arrest, seeking counsel about the destruction of the great hall [of the ancient Persians]. Yahya sent back to him: "Don't do it!" Rashîd said to those present: "In his soul he is Zoroastrian, and he has sympathy for that religion. His prohibition stems from [his concern about] the tearing down of its remains." So Rashîd began to tear down the great hall. Then he saw that great wealth—how much not precisely known—would be required of him in tearing it down. So he ceased from tearing it down and wrote to Yahya letting him know his decision. Yahya answered him that he should spend whatever wealth was required to tear it down, and that he was desirous of that. Rashîd was astonished at the inconsistency between his talk on these two occasions, and he sent to him asking about that. Yahya said: "Yes, as for what I counseled at the beginning, I had a mind for the permanence of report for the nation of Islam and the distance of its fame, and that anyone who wandered to times past and came across other nations in time might see the likes of this great building and say: 'The nation that conquered the nation that built this, that stripped away its remnants, and that took over its kingship, certainly that nation is great and powerful and impervious.' But as for my second answer, you had reported that you had begun tearing it down, and then had lacked strength. So I had a mind to preclude lack of strength from the nation of Islam. So that the one I described who wandered to times past might not say: 'This nation is unable to tear down what the Persians built.'" When that response reached Rashîd, he said: "God damn it! So I have heard nothing that he has said except that it has proved correct." And Rashîd gave up trying to tear down the great hall. [My own translation from Arabic]
Preservation of the past.. especially of someone else's past.. is a distinctly modern concern. You can go a long way in ancient literature without running into concern about preservation. On its face it is a strange phenomenon, something like you taking care to preserve the family photo album of your neighbor two doors down that you hardly know. It starts making more sense once a broad humanistic narrative of the past is in place, giving value to every outcropping of human accomplishment. The crown of this humanistic concern is the UNESCO World Heritage Site program.
One of my concerns is to identify some ancient examples of preservation.. which I occasionally run into in my reading. The above quotation is such an example.
There are two interesting things about this passage. First of all the assumption on the part of Rashîd that any effort to preserve a great building from the last empire (the Persians) must stem from an inner identification with that empire and its state religion (Zoroastrianism). The surprise of the story comes when a further reason for preservation is proffered: the preservation of ruins which point to one's own greatness. Yahya at first reasons that anything which preserves the greatness of the past empire necessarily points up the exceeding greatness of the conquering empire. So let those ruins stand! And they become badges of honor.
I need hardly point out that there is no reference to preserving a great human accomplishment.. or art of surpassing beauty. There is no talk of a museum for the fragments of Persian art. When preservation takes place in the ancient world, it is on grounds that we hardly expect..
In the Shadow of the Confederacy:
A Trip to Stone Mountain
April 27, 2006
Those horsemen are, from left to right, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.. all heroes of the Confederacy. The figures are carved with monumental proportions onto the rock face of Stone Mountain, to the northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. The picture below gives a better sense of the setting.
If there is any standout natural feature in the Atlanta area, it is Stone Mountain. But where I envision a park with foot paths and a preserved natural environment, the idea at Stone Mountain is to fill up the space with as much busyness as possible (this is also reflected in the homepage for Stone Mountain Park). There is a tram to the top of the mountain.. saving people the trouble of hiking. There is a small amusement park with faux historical buildings and quaint shops.. even a Disney-like railroad surrounding the great stone. Then don't forget the Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort, the family campground, and the nearby Stone Mountain Golf Club. I mean, why let natural acreage stand without some commercial improvement? The administrators of Stone Mountain Park clearly understand the logic of that question.
I think the tendency for many would be to discount the extremity of the cultural over-writing at Stone Mountain.. and it is true that there are many examples of this in American life. But the scale of this fantasy landscape here is deeper than anyplace I have encountered, theme parks and Las Vegas excepted. I guarantee that a natural landmark like this would be treated very differently in the West or in the North.. where it would be a State or National Park.
Here two school kids are commandeering a view-finder and using it as a pretend cannon.. all in good fun (I would have done something like that as a kid). What worries me about the experience of Stone Mountain is that there is nowhere a young person could encounter wild nature or anything remotely reflective of the history of the South. In front of these two kids is the portrait of Confederate War heroes.. imposing a monumental human meaning on the natural form of Stone Mountain.. the lawns are manicured and nothing if not safe.. the traditional stores feel like an expanded version of a Cracker Barrel Old-Fashioned Country Store. What is the point of a park if it is not to bring young people into contact with something that challenges their world view? But that is a question whose logic the administrators of Stone Mountain do not understand.
The gift store sold various souvenirs. This wall-hanging I found particularly interesting since Stone Mountain itself is elided.. and the three Confederate leaders stand alone, given the monumental size and stone-permanence of the mountain itself. Looking up from this picture, Stone Mountain looms simply as a sign for Southern values. Stone Mountain is a Confederate Memorial, riding proud above the trees. But what a loss..
Following a Metaphor:
Season of Migration to the North
April 26, 2006
During my Arabic study in Egypt I was force-fed a number of modern Arabic novels, one of them being Season of Migration to the North by the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih. I liked this one more than the others, but I still had some reservations.. I have yet to find the modern Arabic writer whose works I can unreservedly say I enjoy. But that was a couple of years ago now, and as I designed the syllabus for my "Islam and Africa" class (which ended yesterday) I thought maybe this short novel would be worth a return read..
I didn't change my opinion too drastically.. but the process of teaching the novel helped me clarify one method by which a novel gains meaning, and why that meaning can be hard for students to access.
There are two major characters in the short novel. The first is the narrator whose name we never learn; the second Mustafa Sa'eed. The narrator has returned to his small village along the Nile in the Sudan after finishing an advanced degree in England. Mustafa Sa'eed is a mysterious older man who arrived at the village and whose past only slowly opens up for the reader. It is not until the very end that we get an account of the climactic murder of his wife in England. The temptation for the student is to follow the parallel and intertwined personal stories of the narrator and Mustafa Sa'eed.. but then to pass over the broader historical details that accompany these personal stories. I found myself trying to prod the students to explain why certain details about the village or about the colonial past were amplified.. what connection was Tayeb Salih implying between these details and the personal stories concerning the main characters?
One method an author has to draw together the personal and historical is the use of metaphor. This obviates the need for a narrator to step into the text and explain what is happening and why certain elements are included. With the use of repeating metaphors the careful reader is able to align the various layers of the novel and discover meaning that someone just reading for the story will miss.
Tayeb Salih is particularly adept at using a system of metaphors to construct a larger meaning. I found his use of a germs/disease metaphor particularly telling. The first time it occurs is in relation to the horrors of Mustafa Sa'eed's actions in England.. where he serially seduces various women, who die mysteriously. In his trial concerning their deaths, it was stated:
These girls were not killed by Mustafa Sa'eed but by the germ of a deadly disease that assailed them a thousand years ago. [33]
Then in quick succession there are two more occurrences of the metaphor, this time from Mustafa's mouth:
She entered my bedroom a chaste virgin and when she left it she was carrying the germs of self-destruction within her. [35]
...I led her across the short passageway to the bedroom where the smell of burning sandalwood and incense assailed her, filling her lungs with a perfume she little knew was deadly. [42]
Notable in these first instances is the connection to Mustafa Sa'eed as a sexual predator, but then there follows a dramatic widening of the metaphor:
I heard Mansour say to Richard, 'You transmitted to us the disease of your capitalist economy. What did you give us but a handful of capitalist companies that drew off our blood—and still do?' [60]
The ships at first sailed down the Nile carrying guns not bread, and the railways were originally set up to transport troops; the schools were started so as to teach us how to say "Yes" in their language. They imported to us the germ of the greatest European violence, as seen on the Somme and at Verdun... the germ of a deadly disease that struck them more than a thousand years ago. [95]
Everyone who is educated today [in the Sudan] wants to sit at a comfortable desk under a fan and live in an air-conditioned house surrounded by a garden coming and going in an American car as wide as the street. If we do not tear out this disease by the roots... [119]
With this series of references the reader is encouraged to consider to consider the actions of Mustafa Sa'eed in England in the light of colonial/historical events. The descriptive sections are not there "for kicks", but to lend meaning to the personal story that gradually unfolds.
At the violent conclusion to the novel, people are struck by the arrival of something never before seen in their small village:
...it's the first time anything like this has happened in the village since God created it. What a time of affliction we live in! [124]
What can I or anyone else do if the world's gone crazy. Bint Mahmoud's madness was of a kind never seen before. [132]
The words "disease" is not used, but it is implied: some germ of violence has been caught.
I am not claiming that this germs/disease metaphor is the only metaphor used.. in fact there are a number of others which could be similarly followed. My idea, however, is that an important part of learning to read a novel (or other kinds of works) is to identify the ways that connections are established between different layers, whether narrative or descriptive. In the case of Season of Migration to the North, the ability to allow the layers to comment and inform each other is crucial to understanding the novel.
An iPod Examined
April 24, 2006
Someday when we have the ability to take a long view concerning the development of gadgets for playing music, a history will be written that ranges from the 78 to the LP to the cassette tape to the CD.. and the iPod is going to have a prominent place in this history.
These audio formats can be viewed as analogous to a canvas for a visual artist. The canvas traditionally defines the area within which a visual work may take place. It is the space to be filled. Similarly the physical mechanics of an LP, with its two sides and limited space for acoustic grooves, defined an audio canvas for popular musicians. The result was a glorious rise from the single to a cycle of pop songs that achieved a measure of unity through coherent sound and thematic unity.
The CD changed more than we realize. It is humorous to listen to CD versions of albums that were originally LPs, and to recognize the climactic end of what once was side 1, but which now falls humbly in the middle of a CD. CDs represent an expanded time canvas, but they continue to function as a unity which represents the apex of a band's creative output.
An iPod and related gadgets are a step in another direction. They represent an atomizing of favorite songs into customized playlists. Where exactly this is leading will only be clear with greater perspective.. but for now I thought I would note what it is like to acquire an Ipod. I certainly wish someone buying a an old 78 player had documented that process..
The packaging for these small machines is brilliant. Apple Computers, whose logo is there in the top right corner of the package, wishes to send a message to every purchaser: this is a product of the imagination. A box within this box open up to reveal the tiny Nano iPod neatly embedded. Opening one of the side panels reveals the extras, which are each encased in a white plastic covers. When all is unwrapped, this is what one sees:
The CD contains the iTunes software that allows one to transfer music from a computer to the iPod. One wire is for connecting iPod to the computer, another for connecting iPod to ears.. the tiny headphones facing out. Then there is on the right a diminutive leather case for the iPod. Two elements whose usefulness escapes me is the plastic thing to the right of the iPod, along with the white Apple stickers which are too large for anything that came in the packet.. so evidently I am supposed to stick these on our car?
On first discovering the embedded iPod, one finds it wrapped in plastic, with this message on the screen. A reminder, I guess, that one should not fill this gadget with shared music files, but legally purchase songs online. Abiding by the law is not a problem for Emily and I since we rely on downloading our favorite CDs to the iPod.. and don't venture into online file sharing.
It really is a tiny thing, and it is hard to believe that we can fit close to 500 songs on this 2 GB Nano iPod. Although it is surprising how fast the space fills up. Emily now has a nearly complete library of Neil Young albums on hers.
The benefit of the little machine is easy enough to understand.. it allows for unprecedented portability of music. When I spent 2002-2003 in Cairo, I took a small plastic wallet filled with maybe a dozen CDs.. and that pretty much formed my music listening for the year. With one little iPod I could have taken much more music that.. and without the hassle of transporting it and switching CDs.
Why I am Not an Atheist:
Why I am Not a Christian, pt. 2
April 23, 2006
I suffer discomfort at the label of atheist. If I were asked directly about the existence of God, I would probably retreat to something like "I don't know." But "agnostic" seems like a cop-out, and I prefer to state an actual opinion rather than retreat into a non-threatening generality.. even if the opinion, by its nature, cannot be proven.
And my opinion would be that there is no God. I don't see what makes a God necessary. We like the idea of everything occurring by means of cause and effect.. "this is here because.." There are clear evolutionary gains to be had from the ability to reason about the origins of what one sees, and that reasoning will often take the form of a story.. "Why is this place being visited by that group?" The story that explains the past allows for the prediction of events in the future. This habit of mind works out very well in most areas of human development, allowing for the discovery of cycles and patterns.. but it has also led to a bundle of assumptions about the way the universe worked.. and led us to ask questions about the origin and nature of the universe itself.
We should be on guard against the reflexive question.. "If there is no God, then why does anything exist?" I suspect that would be the primal fall-back question for most theistic versions of the nature of the universe. It invites a further question.. "Then how did God come to exist?" Somehow that one is out of bounds; you can't ask questions like that about God. But what if you can't ask questions like that about matter either? What if the atomic physical nature of the matter breaks some of our human demands for cause and effect, beginning with the need for a beginning and end?
So, if that is my opinion, why not comfort with the label of atheist? My answer has to do with the nature of identity. Words like Christian and Muslim and Jew and Hindu have a lot to do not only with creedal belief, but with cultural identity. In two weeks when Emily and I go to Egypt, we will be required to fill out a form for a tourist visa. Among other questions on that form will be one in regards to religion. Theoretically one could write "atheist", but that would be met with both incomprehension and distrust.. and we will fill in "Christian".
There will be nothing dishonest about my claim to be a Christian.. I am culturally a Christian. We can imagine a line up of infidels from different religious traditions: a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Muslim. Even if each of us were agreed on everything I said above about the existence of God, so that we were united in belief, there would still be obvious differences between us, and those differences would be the result of culture. There is more to religion than simply a rote list of propositions with respect to God and the universe. In addition there are a million unstated values and assumptions about life and the best way to live.
An eye-opening experience came during my time in Morocco.. during my first trip to the Middle East. I was translating poetry with a girl in Fes who was majoring in English literature. We worked out something of a reading exchange.. I helped her in English, while she helped me in Arabic. At some point we came to the "The Lamb" by William Blake. You may remember it:
Little Lamb, who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice.
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee;
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by His name,
Little Lamb God bless thee,
Little Lamb God bless thee.
The first paragraph was no problem, but the second one presented some unexpected difficulties. For someone with a Christian background, the references to Jesus as the Lamb of God leap out. And the idea of the Incarnation is there.. God becoming a lowly Man. It all seems easy coming from a Christian background, but how to explain these things to my Moroccan friend? It was nigh impossible. These ideas simply did not compute.. God became a humble lamb? God a little child?
We here enter a conceptual/metaphorical world that is influenced by religion, but which also lies near the base of what we think of as culture. A secular American.. which is one possible description of myself.. by no means leaves behind cultural values unique to Christianity. Many aspects of Christianity.. including forgiveness, grace, and faith.. are susceptible to secular psychological reinterpretations (note the vast shelf of self-help books at your nearest bookstore). These are exactly the elements that would separate a secular Christian from a secular Muslim, Hindu, or Jewish counterpart.
Some Christians, I know, are resentful toward religious "free-riders".. that is, secular people who hold onto religious values while dismissing the belief system which gave birth to it. But that is to miss the reverse influence of culture on religion. A Christian from Italy, Russia, Egypt, and America would share some values, but would also be remarkably different. That difference can be explained only by reference to culture. Christianity has taken on various guises as a result of its interaction with individual cultural systems.. a Russian Orthodox believer is a product both of a religion and a cultural tradition that shaped that religion. When an Orthodox believer ceases to believe in the tenets held by church authorities, does he or she cease to be Russian Orthodox? In a specific way, yes.. but in another, deeper way, no.
Atheism is employed today.. especially in political debates.. largely as a label for outsiders. To be called an atheist is to be defined as someone who does not share the values of the majority of Americans. I am not particularly interested in rehabilitating the term. When I fill out that visa form in a couple of weeks, I will continue to check the box for "Christian".. even as I represent a non-theistic version of American Christianity..
Not a Game Anymore
April 23, 2006
The firing of Mary O. McCarthy by the CIA over her alleged leak of information about a secret prison system in Europe for terrorist suspects should be yet another example as to how badly this administration has gone wrong. This is a woman who ought to be lauded for doing the right thing, and doing so at the peril of her own career. We need more people like her in the upper reaches of large bureaucracies such as the CIA, State Department, and DOD.. but in the future there will surely be even more reticence about speaking out on government abuses.
When news of these secret prisons came out in December 2005, the president came out swinging: "My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy" (New York Times, Dec. 31, 2005). But how exactly does this information help the enemy? I don't think any al-Qaeda operative is really under the illusion that the US is not actively seeking them, and knowing that there are prisons in Europe to supplement Guantanamo does not seem strategically important from their point of view. If this fact gave any comfort to the enemy, it was the comfort that in yet another instance the United States has shown itself willing to compromise on its core principles of democratic transparency and human rights.
The presentation of politics in the media encourages us to see things in terms of two legitimate perspectives. If CNN interviews someone against Bush's policies, then they are sure to show someone else arguing in favor of them. While there are legitimate differences between the approach to social and economic policies favored by liberals and conservatives, the policies of this administration long ago moved past the pale of reasoned difference. Nevertheless, for many media commentators it remains a game, to be played out with the usual array of battling talking heads. This dismissal of Mary McCarthy.. and possible criminal charges.. should be yet another call to see this as more than a political game..
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta
April 22, 2006
It had been several years since I went through the permanent collection of the High Museum here in Atlanta. The collection is not too impressive.. and I am not certain that I would recommend a trip to the museum as a "must-do" for visiting friends.
What caught my attention was the arrangement foregrounding links between the applied arts and the fine arts. So, on the one hand, there are minor works by Rothko, Pollack, and Gorky hanging on the wall.. but then close by may be a some colorful furniture from the 50s.
This furniture and other examples of applied arts from the 40s and 50s marks a distinct change from the more formal Craftsman or Art Deco designs from earlier in the century. So it is hardly surprising to find the fine arts making a similarly radical leap. For the most part, our decor seems to get the art it deserves in each age.
It was often the furniture itself that caught my eye. I swore to myself that someday I would get a large console radio for our living room.. with which we will listen to classic radio..
Looking at the fine craftsmanship of beds and chairs I reflected on how nice it would be to live in a world where craftsmanship is a part of everyday life. I am sure equal craftsmen are alive today, but their work is far too expensive to have a place in the life of an ordinary person. The majority of us can only pay for work that is designed to be mass produced. But how beautiful this work can be!
It makes one want to buy a few less things, but make sure what one does buy is beautiful.
One case held an assortment of daily household items that had magically been transformed into something beautiful. There was a glass iron, an odd clock, and then an old camera.. which really did seem to belong in a museum.
A little later there were a few small boxes constructed by Joseph Cornell. These were not spectacular, but these little constructions always draw me.. there small private world beckoning. Lucky the person who has a little box to put all the odd striking things that cross his or her gaze. Which is a further lesson as to what the internet can be.. a box for preserving all these random things.. and building them into some personal pattern that will beckon to someone who stumbles upon them..
A Small Percent: Nirvana, pt. 3
April 21, 2006
A line from a Nirvana song that has always stood out to me is from "Smells Like Teen Spirit":
A little group it's always been
And always will until the end
For a long time that sounded to me like a pure expression of punk idealism: Nirvana is a small rock group, and always will be. The storyline for Nevermind goes that they had no expectation for the kind of wild success they eventually achieved.. and how could they have anticipated knocking Michael Jackson from Billboard's #1 pedestal? Their expectation was to stay small.. a band for insiders.
One interesting page from Kurt Cobain's journals includes an early version of the lyrics to the song.. and one alternative version goes: "The same small percent has always been and always will until the end." But what can "small percent" mean? It obviously does not refer to a small rock band, so we can eliminate my stand-by interpretation.
Cobain several times makes reference to this "small percent." One important reference comes from a rough draft of what must have been intended as liner notes for Nevermind. Cobain writes:
Thanks to: un-encouraging parents everywhere for giving their children the will to show them up, and to the white macho-american male for reminding the small percent who are capable of recognizing injustice to fight you... [165]
Here small percent means a small minority of individuals with a specific insight: recognition of injustice. The antithesis of this gifted group is the pack of white macho-americans.. which we can assume to be a larger percentage (large enough to elect a president).
Another version of this idea comes out a little later in the journals:
There is a small percentage of the population who were BORN with the ability to detect injustice. they have Tendencies to question injustice and to look for answers in ways that would be considered abnormal by their oppressors. They have Tendencies and talents in the sense that they know from an early age that they have the gift to challenge what is expected of their future...
The larger percent who have and always will dominate the smaller percent were not BORN with even the slightest ability to comprehend injustice. [183-4]
The "have and always will" echoes the line from "Smells Like Teen Spirit".. helping to prove the relationship of this idea with those important lines. Cobain is restating, with his own emphases, the Romantic doctrine of the genius. A few people are BORN special, and no matter what the effort at education, there will always be a small percent who are special.
What is sad is to watch Cobain follow up this rather stimulating restatement of the Romantic genius with a deflating note: "It's obvious that I am on the educated level of about 10th grade in High School" (185). And a Nirvana fan will remember Kurt's "I think I'm dumb.." line from In Utero.. his honest evaluation of himself. But he had no need to be defensive on this point, since his definition of the small percent has no place for "intelligence", but is comprised of something we might call "consciousness." A different state of mind than the larger percent that inevitably surrounds an individual.
This idea of the "small percent" also makes its way into Cobain's vision of Nirvana. To the side of one of his interminable lists of bands, he writes the following:
But as I said before the small percent of deserving bands and music-loving employes will keep sawing away at the Heap... [233]
So punk is invested with that same individual consciousness. Not all punk bands, but the ones worth listening to.. the ones obsessively mentioned in Cobain's journals. Despite Cobain's conceptual alignment of Nirvana with the world of punk (see pgs. 106, 277), he actually believes in a very elitist version of it. Punk is not music for a social class, nor for a group of rock rebels.. nor is it a statement of radical egalitarianism.. it is music for a small percent who share a common interior consciousness.. which is naturally shared by only a small percent of bands.
Hamlet’s Band: Nirvana, pt. 2
April 20, 2006
A line drawing from Kurt Cobain’s notebooks features the outline of a person with a question mark in his head. This person poses a question in a dialogue bubble: “mandatory breeding laws?” Then underneath is written:
Nirvana
cant decide whether they
want to be punk or R.E.M.
Indecision can often
At times Kill a band and
Nirvana are suicidal [55]
This indecision is mirrored in the band’s music, which is commonly praised for its ability to switch registers between soft and hard.. within the same song. It is as if no decision could be made, so they did both.
One dominant feature of the published Kurt Cobain Journals is the constant presence of music lists. These are simply lists of bands and albums that Cobain has found inspiring. One of the first such lists to appear begins with this descriptive tag: “NIRVANA sounds like black sabbath playing the Knack…”, and the list goes on. In another long list we come across odd pairings:
AC/DC — Soul Stripper
REM — 10,000
Psychedellic Pistols — Pulse
Sexedellic Furs — Bodies
Cobain continually presents contradictions. I venture that there are not too many AC/DC fans who are simultaneously REM fans. In fact it is hard to know how anyone who accepts the values of the one, could embrace the other. The second pair—which obviously should be the Psychedellic Furs and the Sex Pistols—is another contradiction, classic punk band and 80s New Wave. “Isn’t She Pretty in Pink” gets purposely mixed up with “Never Mind the Bollocks.”
Cobain ends one of his most nakedly honest self-summaries with a statement about the construction of his self: “I use bits and pieces of others personalities to form my own.” That could also serve as a summary of the construction of Nirvana.. it went forward through the incorporation of bits and pieces of other bands. The long lists of musical influences represent our clues to the elements of this construction. That these lists were not purely a matter of the habits of journaling, but a genuine cast of mind, we can find confirmed from an odd source, Courtney Love’s mom, who writes in her recent biography:
I remember a car ride one afternoon when I was visiting Frances in Seattle. Kurt and Courtney sat in front, firing names, albums, groups, singers, songs, and labels back and forth at each other, making the air crackle with their passionate exchange. [Her Mother’s Daughter (2005), by Linda Carroll, pg. 296]
For a young man who was looking to find “self-respect” through music, this barrage of bare names of bands and albums was obviously important.
MTV Unplugged in New York, the posthumously released album of acoustic-type settings is the final testimony to the importance of lists. The non-Nirvana songs are from an odd assortment of sources: David Bowie, the Vaselines, the Meat Puppets, and Leadbelly. One might wonder how Cobain came to choose these songs.. whether he cast around a few weeks before the scheduled show to find some stellar songs.. but all he had to do is look to his journals. Leadbelly is a mainstay from the first versions of this music list. The Meat Puppets and Vaselines are part of an ever shifting group of classic punk bands that Cobain enthuses about. David Bowie is one of a number of surprising non-punk artists who shows up. This final performance by Nirvana was a product of these never-ending lists.. and the final performance shows just how effectively these influences had been incorporated into the identity of the band.. as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” comes off sounding like Cobain’s own composition.
Whatever the contradictions, and perhaps because of the indecision, Nirvana came to its own musical identity.
"Hell is Murky":
Welles' Film Macbeth
April 19, 2006
I find it difficult to write about any Shakespearian production because it seems that I enter a tradition of staging and thematic emphasis that has taken on a life of its own. A scene may seem striking to me, but I hear a voice saying: "in stage versions it is always thus.."
The inevitable rival for the version of Macbeth by Orson Welles is the Hamlet done by Lawrence Olivier in the same year: 1948. both are black and white, and both are skillful as films, not simply as plays that happen to be filmed. Of course, Welles is battling with one arm tied behind his back, as his budget was so severely limited. But I think it would be fair to say that film style is far more intrusive in the experience of watching Macbeth than in Olivier's Hamlet. Welles gave us a murky and dank version of Macbeth, punctuated with screams and cries. Banquo's ghost does not shimmer in a haze of transparent white, but sits with blood dripping down his forehead. The blunt repeated stabbing of Macduff's son, with shrill music in background, is reminiscent of Hitchcock's Psycho. It is as if Welles intuited the style of horror films before they became an accepted genre.. This must have something to do with why Welles' Macbeth was a commercial and critical failure in the United States.. It fell too distant from any decorum of effect.. it was a horror movie.
Another helpful comparison is Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1961), a version of Macbeth which transports the play to Medieval Japan. In this version I was struck by the way Macbeth's actions spread like ripples in a pond to disturb a wide region. Through the use of landscape and travel one builds up a mental picture of that region, with its castles and forests. Macbeth is at the center of a widening rush of lawlessness and destruction, but this all gets out of Macbeth's hands quite quickly. In Welles' version the drama is securely settled on the person of Macbeth and his internal deliverance to darkness. There is no geography to learn beside the central castle (looking very much like Charles Foster Kane's mansion) and our belated introduction to the fact that there is a forest called Birnan out there. Now some of that, surely, goes back to the budget issues faced by Welles, but even with a large budget, I Welles would only have further highlighted the role of Macbeth himself.
Lady Macbeth (Jeanette Nolan) oddly falls prey to this central focus on Macbeth. In his interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Welles makes some revealing statements:
PB: Was Jeanette Nolan your original choice for Lady Macbeth?
OW: She's a fine actress—from our radio days—but, actually, no. Among several others, I wanted Vivien Leigh, but Olivier wouldn't hear of it.
PB: Why?
OW: I didn't ask him.
PB: Why did you want her?
OW: I wanted a sexpot, Peter—and she could speak the lines
So Lady Macbeth was interesting to Welles not because of her psychological manipulation, but because of the rather raw sexual tug exerted on her "Man." To understand her role in this film you have to take quite seriously the kisses and the attraction. Unfortunately, Welles was working with an actor, and not a sexpot.. and it is tough to believe that raw attraction.
Another thematic element added by Welles is the importance of Christian symbols. It is no accident that the forces which come at the end to depose Macbeth carry crosses among their spears, and that the cross sits conspicuously on the helmets of their leaders. Although the Christian religion is at first present in the castle of Macbeth, it is driven out by the dark power of Macbeth.. and not re-established until the end. Welles himself commented on this theme:
The main point of that production is the struggle between the old and new religions. I saw the witches as representatives of a Druidical pagan religion suppressed by Christianity—itself a new arrival. That's why the long prayer of St. Michael (not in Shakespeare at all)—that's why the screen is constantly choked with Celtic crosses.
That struggle centers in the internal world of Macbeth.. who finally delivers himself entirely to the lust for power and control. The film is most effective in the combination of Welles' acting as Macbeth and the films dark angles and murky settings. The high point may be Welles' narration of Macbeth's great lines near the end, with dark layers of clouds drifting slowly on the screen: "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.."
“To Create and Not Take Away”:
Nirvana, pt. 1
April 17, 2006
Reading through the Kurt Cobain Journals, a selection of beautifully reproduced handwritten entries from the notebooks of Kurt Cobain, I understood something about how unique and experience it is to work with manuscripts. It is one thing to encounter these ideas in the neat square type of a printed book, something else to look at the rough scribblings and raw ideas that Cobain jotted down. In print an idea looks like a settled and accomplished thought, but in these notebooks every idea seems dependent on a context, and even a mood..
On several occasions Kurt Cobain strays into autobiography. On one occasion he narrates something like a calling. The setting was not a forest or hill.. something that a student of American religious callings might expect.. take for example a 19th century version narrated by the evangelist Charles Finney:
North of the village, and over a hill lay a grove of woods, in which I was in the almost daily habit of walking… Nevertheless, instead of going to the office I turned and bent my course for that grove of woods, feeling that I must be alone and away from all human eyes and ears… [I] found a place where some large trees had fallen across each other, leaving an open place between three or four large trunks of trees. There I saw I could make a kind of closet. I crept into this place and knelt down for prayer. [The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney (1989), ed. Garth M. Rosell and Richard A.G. Dupuis, pgs. 18-19]
If the lonely woods is the locus classicus for a divine calling, then the parking lot of a grocery store must be the last place to expect such a calling. But the parking lot to a grocery store is exactly where Kurt Cobain found his future:
Montesano Washington a place not accustomed to having live rock acts in their little village A population of a few thousand loggers and their subservient wives.
We piled into the parking lot behind the Thriftway as other zombies slouch bobbed with combes in their back pockets…
They played faster than I had ever imagined music could be played and with more energy than my Iron Maiden records could provide. This was what I was looking for. For, AH Punk Rock
The other stone[r]s were Bored and kept shouting, Play some Def Leppard. God I hated those fucks more than ever I came to the promise land of a Grocery store I found my special purpose. [60-1]
It is interesting just how closely this parallels Christian narratives of a calling. Cobain has to be saved from “those fucks” the stoners, a group with which he clearly identified at this point. His vision of salvation comes in the form of punk rock, which provides a different kind of energy.. something more spiritual, even. At the end of the quotation Cobain allows himself some irony: “I came to the promise land of a Grocery store.” It was not the pristine woods.. the thick deciduous green of the Pacific Northwest.. the place where even Gus Van Sant in his film Last Days cannot help but situate his mumbling version of Cobain. The decisive moment came in the parking lot of a small town grocery store. But that is the very point: this is not a grasping after the sublime, but a discovery of unknown energy in a grungy setting.
Then there is that magical sentence: “I found my special purpose.” He would not just be the next Melvins though.. and he would be playing to crowds that this Thriftway parking lot could never hold. Through punk rock Cobain got an identity and purpose. In a letter dismissing an early drummer, Cobain explains what he is after:
Getting a name on a record isn’t shit. Anybody can do it, but there’s a big difference between credentials & notoriety, and self respect through music. [16]
Which I take to mean that he was not after the external trappings of the rock star dream, but after an internal, self-defined feeling of mastery.. the knowledge that he has done something that is good and that is truly his own creation. It is a salvation not through faith, but through creation. If there is one thing for which I have un-alloyed admiration for Cobain, it is his sense of the importance of creation:
I guess in a way anyone with enough ambition to create and not take away is someone who deserves respect. [245-6]
And no matter what you may think of Cobain.. his final suicide and drug habits.. he most certainly did succeed in creating something. And if he failed to find respect in his own eyes.. he nevertheless won our respect, and his words should be our motto: to create and not take away.
Easter Meditation
Why I Am Not a Christian, pt. 1
April 16, 2006
One vivid Bible college memory involves a chapel meeting in which some student speaker brought up a book entitled Why I Am Not a Christian, but then struggled to remember who the author of the book was. Professor Mike DeRidder solemnly called out "Bertrand Russell." It struck me then as odd that here I am in a Bible college and there is a certain amount of intellectual cache in knowing about this book that directly attacks Christianity. If I remember right, this was even a textbook used in some class.. maybe apologetics. I also marvelled at the inevitable irony that any serious attempt to debunk Christianity will just become fodder for Bible college instructors. And without doubt someone will stand up and proclaim in chapel somewhere: "Well, if that is the best someone can do against Christianity, then my faith is assured."
But I do want to say a few words against Christianity, and hopefully a steady trickle of blogs on this topic will turn into a collection that has some unity, and which examines Christianity from a number of critical angles.. and which Bible college professors will not be too eager to use in class.
It is good to start this project on Easter, as it gives me an excuse to consider the resurrection. Ask the apostle Paul, this is the central point of the Christian faith: “…if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (1 Cor. 15.14). Paul felt so strongly that he even listed witnesses. Many “evidence that demands a verdict” approaches to Christianity place the resurrection front and center in their defense of the faith.
Just last week I noticed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a quotation from a certain Bob Hodgson, dean of the Nida Institute for Biblical Scholarship at the American Bible Society. Defending the traditional claims of Christianity against the alternative story embedded in a text such as the Gospel of Judas, Hodgson noted:
The only explanation I can come up with in the Easter story is that God raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus appeared to his followers… and utterly transformed them and imbued them with such power and vision that they were able to literally turn history upside down.
Nothing particularly new there, but it is useful as it is such a common Evangelical position.
Now let me try a thought experiment. Say someone walked up to you and said that four hundred years ago in southern China there was a man who called himself God’s son… and even claimed a certain level of divinity. That man performed miracles and gathered around himself a group of disciples. He was eventually killed by the authorities, but shortly afterwards this charismatic leader was reported to have been raised from the dead. Not only that, but four accounts from the generation following his death survive and are widely distributed. Only one of these four is purportedly by someone who actually knew the charismatic leader, but it is oddly also the latest of the accounts, not being set down until a good 50 years after the events it recorded took place. Further, it is claimed by this person who has approached you that your belief or disbelief in this historical story is of utmost value to you, as it determines your eternal destiny.
OK, take a breath. Look this messenger up and down. What would you say? Your answer should parallel your response to the Christian story of Easter.
Here is what would be going through my mind:
This is an unlikely story. Human beings as we know them die and stay dead. While accepting the fact that something miraculous could be at work, the probability must lie in the chance that somehow these events have been garbled or altered in the transmission process.
It would take a lot of hard evidence to make me believe that something which would be utterly unique to my experience, and the recorded experience of so many others, had occurred. What is the proffered evidence? Four books that are of uncertain provenance, which testify to the resurrection and other miraculous works attributed to this leader. I would not take the time to examine these four books very closely.. as it is not my job to explain what happened, but simply to decide whether this is a claim that has the weight of probability. To explain the story would require a lot of research and is a hopeless undertaking since any alternative is probably lost.
Miraculous healings and other such stories were associated with this leader. Given the quick historical growth of his sect, there can be little doubt that people around him believed in this man and his miracles. But there have been many such figures in history. I always think of Aimee Semple McPherson, an evangelist and healer who flourished in the 1920s and 30s. The following is a contemporary newspaper account of her revival meeting in San Jose in 1921:
What followed beneath that tent on San Jose field will probably sound like the veriest hocus-pocus to many. But nevertheless it did happen. It happened not in the misty, nebulous long ago, to white-robed men and women in a time we cannot quite visualize as ever having had reality, but to children and men and women who had street addresses and telephone numbers, who came in automobiles and not on camel-back by caravan, as it was said they did long ago. The blind saw again; the deaf heard. Cripples left their crutches and hung them on the rafter. [Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson (1993) by Daniel Mark Epstein, pgs 229-30]
By analogy to other healers, I will assume that a fair amount of this was produced by psychosomatic suggestion.. although I would never accuse McPherson of trickery. Jesus of Nazareth, living in a far less educated and far more superstitious era, could obviously have evoked a similarly hysterical response from the crowds that followed him.
Finally, what about the final claim that my personal belief or disbelief in the story of this Chinese leader will determine my eternal destiny? That would be more absurd than anything else in the story: the idea that my fate depends on something as frail as a cognitive judgment of historical fact. It is no doubt reasonable to consider the claims concerning this Chinese leader and decide that the story is improbable.. and if it is reasonable to make that historical judgment, it will hardly be the determining factor in any scenario regarding my eternal destiny. Now, if an angel appeared to me and told me this story, then I would have another kind of claim to truth.. and I would have to decide whether someone put something in my orange juice.. but I think I will wait until that becomes an issue.
There is nothing in this line of reasoning that proceeds from an a priori assumption that God does not exist or that miracles do not happen. It is simply an example of how to think reasonably about a religious claim. I think most people, if presented with the same claims that are attached to Jesus of Nazareth, but displaced onto an otherwise unknown Chinese leader who lived four centuries ago, would come to a negative decision pretty quickly. The fact that the Christian claims appear more reasonable is simply a trick of perspective.. like the visual trick of lines that seems shorter of longer depending on their background.
Heart's in the Virginia Highland
April 16, 2006
We took a walk yesterday through Virginia Highland. It is a street that has become a trendy spot in the past few years, with lots of restaurants and upscale stores. I like it for its old markers, such as the one at the entrance to St. Charles Place, below. It feels as if summer is definitely on the way, and the green leaves are already forming their thick gauze.
New Sounds in a New Time:
Thinking about the Flaming Lips
April 15, 2006
The above cover for the new CD from the Flaming Lips offers a seeming contradiction: an explosion consisting of psychedelic baubles of bright paint. If one were to zoom in on the paint spatters, leaving out the shadowy figure, it could appear like a rather standard psychedelic design.. a lava lamp-like burst of color. The contradiction is also present in the title itself: At War with the Mystics.. since mystics are not usually the people anyone fights against.
The lyrics of the album revolve around power and smallness. The most beautiful moment of the album comes at the end of the nervous song "It Overtakes Me", when the music dies down and a distant male voice sings:
And I'm there, looking up at the sky
And I'm scared, thinkin' bout the way that I
Don't understand anything at all...
And how it overtakes me... and I am just so small...
Do I stand a chance?
Another song uses cosmic terms to question any version of a divine calling:
Who knows?
Maybe there isn't a vein of stars calling out my name
No glow from above our heads
Nothing there to see you down on your knees
Power gets a harsh evaluation, and in many lines it is almost impossible not to hear criticism of Bush: "Every time you state your case/ The more I want to punch your face." Although at no time is Bush or any other political figure named.. ostensibly we are in space.. but the political jibes still leap out:
They got their weapons to solve all their questions
They don't know what they're for
Why can't they see that's not power that's greed
To just want more and more
These political overtones were confirmed in the brief interview of lead singer Wayne Coyne in the April edition of Mojo:
This time I was happy to sing about drug addicts, prostitutes, monsters, for us to go wherever our imagination took us. But reality was seeping in. The enormous embarrassment that is George Bush—you can't just sit there and ignore it. I think, luckily, you end up getting a bit of both—wizards in outer space, but they're battling George Bush.
So with that in mind, what can we say about the album cover? And just who are the mystics? Given the nature of the Flaming Lips' work, one might think they themselves are the mystics.. and there is no doubt something in our national political discourse that is at war with this brand of psychedelic aestheticism. But in the terms of the album, the mystics must be equated with the "fanatics" who wield immense power. The Flaming Lips are "at war" with those who think they're radical.. but in fact are fanatical. That psychedelic explosion of the cover seems particularly appropriate in this light. This music and the sensibility it reflects is their only possible weapon.
We are in the midst of interesting times for popular music. One sign that new evaluations are in the process of being formed is the recent article in the New Yorker (April 17) devoted to Pete Seeger. He is a singer who has spent a fair amount of his life in the wilderness of critical dismissal.. probably ever since Dylan turned his back on the folk crowd in the mid-60s. But there he is, 86 and looking primed for something of a new appraisal with the Bruce Springsteen album covering his work to be released at the end of this month.
There is something refreshing in a voice that is willing to directly take on power. Bush and his crew are in the process of creating some new demands for popular musicians. It seems pointless to go on with business as usual. Nothing sounds so foreign now as music that refuses to take a stand.. in some way. This is a pressure that has obviously pushed the Flaming Lips a little out of their psychedelic comfort zone.. with triumphant results. It is also a force that must be reckoned with by other artists.
The same Mojo that carried a brief interview with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips also carried notice that Bob Dylan has gone back into the studio to record a new album. The question must be whether the resignation that dominated Love and Theft (released 9/11/2001) can get turned into something that will sound important in a new time. We do live in a political world, now more than ever.
Our Coming New World:
The Case for Preservation
April 14, 2006
An article by John Gray in the most recent New York Review of Books examines some recent books on the topic of globalization. It seems to me incontrovertible that the coming century will pose huge problems for the way of life Americans think of as their birthright. On the one hand there are the accumulating human-caused changes to the environment, and on the other a continuing surge in human population. By the time we are done with these twin issues, it is likely that our world will be largely unrecognizable to someone who had lived a mere two centuries earlier.
An issue that Gray takes up in his article is the possible outcome of globalization. I think in the minds of many Americans, when it is not perceived as a direct threat, globalization is understood as the process of getting every country up to our industrial/technological speed. For the optimists, this means bigger markets for our goods.. and more peaceful mixing of human cultures. This version of "convergence" is questioned by Gray:
The conjunction of intensifying scarcity in energy supplies with accelerating climate change is the other face of globalization. It poses a large question mark over Cohen's belief that the main problem with globalization is that it is incomplete, for it suggests that completing it may not be feasible. The current phase is only the extension to the wider world of the industrial revolution that began in England a couple of centuries ago, but already it is destabilizing the environmental systems on which all industrial societies depend. Extending the energy-intensive lifestyle of the rich world to the rest of humankind would have an even more destabilizing impact.
The point here is that the hope that all human beings could live at our current American level of consumption is impossible on its face. Eight billion people (the global population we are looking at in the next century) living like an average American would devastate the planet. That is, if the resources were there to allow this as a possibility. The recent up tick in oil consumption from China and India has already sent oil prices higher.. and one can imagine what would happen if still more parts of the world came "online" with respect to energy demands.
Thinking in terms of America and its future.. what are the choices? There would seem to be two. First would be to accept the fact of a world badly divided between those at the top of the pyramid and those at the bottom. We could create a club of nations and decree that these countries alone have access to the majority of the world's resources.. and perhaps that club already exists in the form of the G-8. The other would be to work to bring a level of sustainability to the American (and more generally Western) lifestyle. Realistically, that must mean a fall in consumption.. Americans would start to live a little more like Indians.
Both options have risks. Why would a surging nation accept second or third rank in the world's tier system? Someone will crash that party. And as to the option of living with less consumption.. I sometimes think that Americans would rather take the world to hell than see our power (vastly inflated since World War II) wane. Of course, we would take the world to hell insisting it is for the world's own good.. and in defense of certain hallowed words.
Someone might admit the political challenges related to globalization, but still miss the ways that these issues are in the process of changing everything about our world. Mecca and the hajj is a simple example. Early in the 20th century the number of pilgrims numbered in the tens of thousands.. in 1931 numbering only 40,000. The number of security guards employed by the Saudis at the time of the hajj was greater than the total number of pilgrims just 70 years ago. The number of pilgrims for the hajj now gets to about 2 million. In response to this immense crowd aspects of the hajj that had been relatively stable for centuries have been transformed in the past generation, beginning with the construction of an enlarged Mosque surrounding the Ka'bah. I found the following description of the way even Islamic rituals are changing as a result of the logistical challenges that arise when dealing with this many people:
Hajj managers encourage pilgrims to stick to the basic rites and dispense with others that are only customary or that are potentially life threatening. Each year, they urge pilgrims making the tawaf to be content with beckoning to the Black Stone from a distance instead of pushing through the crowd to kiss or touch it. Nowadays, most people make their animal sacrifices by proxy rather than in person… [Guests of God: Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World (Oxford UP, 2004), by Robert Bianchi, pg. 12]
So it is not simply a matter of changing a few buildings. And it goes without saying that Islam is not the only religion facing these kinds of modern transformations.
I don't think one has to be too imaginative to recognize that a time is coming when the world of the past.. the world which formed human beings for several thousand years.. will seem strange, even unrecognizable. The very seasons may be different, the coastlines almost certainly, and the pace of human concrete-construction may well leave only islands of preserved historical and natural sites.. from which the visitor is challenged to mentally-reconstruct a life that proceeded on totally different assumptions. But perhaps not many visitors will want to engage in that effort.
Preservation will be a central issue for this time of change. It is a word that will get repeated elaboration on this website.. preservation of places, cultures, points of view.. cultural products.. ways of traveling and styles of living..
Translation Manifesto
April 12, 2006
I find positively mind-boggling the rarity of Arabic translations into English. By all accounts, Arabic represents a major literary and philosophical tradition.. but what could a person buy in order to learn that? If one jumps to the catalogue for Penguin Classics, and selects Arabic literature.. the result is underwhelming: The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam.. which is a Persian work! If you look a little harder you will also find the Qur'an.. but that is all..
The problem also becomes apparent as one looks at the way Islam gets taught a the university level. The American Academy of Religion posts syllabi for various courses, and the following is the reading list from one class taught by Omid Safi at Colgate University (there are many examples I could have chosen to use):
1) Michael Wolfe, The Hadj.
2) William Chittick, Vision of Islam.
3) John Esposito, ed, Oxford History of Islam.
4) Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Qur'an: Text, Translation, and Commentary.
5) Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biograpy of the Prophet
6) Farid al-Din Attar, translated by Dick Davis. Conference of the Birds.
7) Carl Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism.
8) Roy Mottahedeh, Mantle of the Prophet.
9) Reliance of the traveller
10) Farid Esack, On Being A Muslim
On this list the historical works are exactly two: the Qur'an and the Conference of the Birds by Farid al-Din Attar.. a wonderful book, but again.. a Persian book. Out of a total of ten books, only two are primary sources. I have nothing against any of these books, but it is obvious that this lopsided emphasis on what others have said about Islam, to the exclusion of historical Muslim writers, is bound to give a skewed view.. one that takes into account the questions that dominate current debate, such as the connection between Islam and violence, or Islam and women, and leave behind the questions that Medieval Muslims themselves would have asked.
My wish list for easily-available translations now has four members: 1) Futûh al-Buldân (Conquests of Nations); 2) Murûj al-Dhahab (Fields of Gold) by the historian Mas'udi; 3) an early commentary on the Qur'an, such as that by Tabari; and 4) the Rihlah of Ibn Jubayr. Each of these works has been translated into English or another European language, but the matter of availability chiefly concerns me right now. Without access to a good university library.. or, more correctly, a university in a strong interlibrary loan network.. these works are not ready at hand for students or general readers.
These are larger projects.. and I especially have my eye on the last work of the above list. But for now my goal is to build up a portfolio of short Arabic translations. These will be posted on this web site, and include brief biographical notices of important writers and religious thinkers along with discrete sections from longer works that could be used as a representative sample. The final goal is to produce an on-line textbook of short readings.. to be used in my own classes on Islam, but also available broadly to anyone out there with an interest in the topic. I should also note that collaboration with other scholars is definitely a possibility.
In some ways this project will resemble the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, maintained by Fordham University. Under the rubric of Islamic history the site provides English translations of primary source material. But what I find unhelpful about this site is its disciplinary focus on history.. i.e. what really happened. The selections are chosen and excerpted for their clarity in illumining a particular topic.. lost is the original format, along with inevitable digressions, which provide a window not just into what happened, but how people thought about their world. Even when I do not provide a full translation of a work, it will be a translation that maintains the isnâd (chains of authority) and technical digressions.. not to mention Quranic quotations.
The ultimate roots for this project is a dissatisfaction with Middle Eastern Studies.. I think Edward Said had some important things to say, but the overall tenor of his influence has been to dissuade students from engaging with classical texts.. as if there is something slightly suspect in a devotion to old texts and understanding old points of view. In the process of excoriating Orientalists he presided over a period during which there was remarkably little translation of classical Arabic works. And to my eyes, it is exactly this lack of textual connection with Islam that is enabling it to be widely misunderstood. So I guess I am saying that instead of attacking those who peddle a distorted view of the Middle East, why not make available the texts that would allow for a more realistic and informed view of the Middle East? That is the legacy that I would choose for myself..
Agnes Scott in Decatur
April 11, 2006
This semester Emily has been assistant professor at Agnes Scott in Decatur. It is an easy drive from where we live, just straight down Clairmont Ave. You have to do a bit of a dog leg to get around downtown Decatur, but otherwise it would be a straight shot. It is a liberal arts college for women. I would miss the boys.. but Emily loves the all-girl environment. A few pictures of the college..
More Quaker Bumper Stickers
April 11, 2006
These include the following statements:
Peace is Patriotic
Peace Love & Harmony
I love Kenya
Nothing Grows Under a BUSH
War is not the Answer (This is a sticker/sign that originated at our Atlanta Quaker meeting, by the way)
Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home
And then oddly the circular one reads:
Really Really Really Love Golf... GA
The Importance of the Olives:
Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons
April 10, 2006
The only version of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) now available is the VHS version put out by Turner Classics. The man who introduces the movie.. in that old VHS format which you have to either sit through or fast forward.. describes the way RKO Studios cut 40 minutes to get it down to 88 minutes total. Then he has the nerve to suggest that maybe it was an improvement.
Watching the truncated version, it is easy to feel the movie stretching toward something more expansive. The movie needs time because it is not simply the story about a family's decline, but a story about the passing of a particular world. This theme is set out from the first words of the film, narrated by Orson Welles:
The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873. Their splendor lived throughout all the years that saw their midland town spread and darken into a city.
Then at the very end of the film, this theme is taken up again by the narrator:
George Amberson Minifer walked homeward slowly through what seemed to be the strange streets of a strange city. For the town was growing, changing. It was heaving up in the middle incredibly. It was spreading incredibly. And as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself and darkened its sky.
So by its own self-definition, The Magnificent Ambersons is about a period in our national history, beginning with 1873 and continuing until the dominance of the automobile was well established.
The characters in the drama Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten), Isabel Amberson Minifer (Dolores Costello), and George Minifer (Tim Holt) are strong, but stripped of the lush period background, they seem to be floating. I don't get the feeling that the characters were ever meant to carry all the weight of the film.. But let me explain, as I would hate to come across as saying that Welles was not interested in character. Take the sled scene, with George Minifer racing along in the snow with airy tinkling bells in the background. The sled is interspersed with scenes of Eugene Morgan trying to start his newfangled and decidedly noisy "horseless carriage." As George passes he pronounces: "Get a horse!" The scene is about character, but it is also about a time and its social realities. The characters in Ambersons need space to breathe.. they need a background.
I still need to read the original script to learn what exactly was changed (besides the obviously tacked-on ending), but I will guess that a major part of the cuts were scenes that allowed those characters to inhabit a particular background. The movie was pared down to an essential familial drama. Something like this appears to be the subject of this bit of dialogue between Peter Bogdanovich and Orson Welles:
PB: Probably the silliest cut I know of comes in the middle of a long sustained shot during the ball when two characters make some comment about olives, which were evidently new to America at the turn of the century.
OW: Yes. You didn't get to see the little joke about the olives, because some lamebrain said, "What's olives got to do with it?" One of those things. They cut twenty seconds' playing time and cut into two pieces out crane shot that would have played for a whole reel without a cut. Too bad. I like digressions, don't you? [126]
The olives were minor, but they represented the strange world in which these characters lived. To make quite sure that this world emerged full-blown in its oddity was the work of hundreds of details, from the coughing hot-water pipes that filled the bathtub for the uncle Jack Amberson, to the wistful introduction which explained some details about period fashion.
I thought about Gone with the Wind (1939) after watching Ambersons.. an odd comparison, perhaps, but Ambersons has a bit of the same broad historical ambition. Only Welles delivers a much darker American story. The colors seem to go darker as the film progresses, and the music too seems more and more haunting. Instead of a film that celebrates a myth about the past in faux historical detail, Welles actually dares to present a complicated view of our past, fleshed out through the drama of the Ambersons, that should haunt Americans who care about the worlds that could have been.. and who want to imagine a world not made by automobiles and their never ceasing demand for more fuel.
Making Terms with the Bad:
Welles' The Lady from Shanghai
April 9, 2006
The Lady from Shanghai is a noir tale told from the perspective of an Irishman named Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles). The character depends on two contradictory character traits: someone with bluster who exudes knowledge of the seamy side of life, and then someone not sharp enough to avoid being tricked. The world around O'Hara is characterized by him as a teeming tank of sharks, maddened at the scent of blood, and ripping each other to shreds.. surely one of Welles' more memorable rhetorical set-pieces.
A pair of dialogue passages stand out to me, the first one comes almost 40 minutes into the movie, as Rosalie (Rita Hayworth) tells Michael:
R: Everything's bad, Michael, everything. You can't escape it or fight it. You've got to get along with it. Deal with it. Make terms. You're such a foolish knight errant, Michael.
If you missed the brief passage, then you might be caught by surprise at the end, where Rosalie lies dying and Michael stands behind:
M: You said the world is bad. We can't run away from the badness. And you're right there. But you also said we can't fight it, we must deal with the badness, make terms. And let the badness deal with you and make its own terms in the end...
R: You can fight, but what good is it?
[Michael starting to walk away]
R: Goodbye...
M: You mean we can't win?
R: No, we can't win... Give my love to the sunrise.
M: Then we can't lose either. Only if we quit.
R: And you're not going to...
M: Not again...
R: Michael, I'm frightened... Michael, come back here... Michael... I don't want to die!
[Michael stops and looks back at her]
R: I DON'T WANT TO DIE!
[Michael walks away for good]
First, I should point out how enjoyable Orson Welles is as a writer of dialogue.. what could be more perfect than: "Give my love to the sunrise", delivered by a beautiful dying woman? In the book of interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Welles tells a story of meeting Truman Capote, and being surprised to find that Capote could reel off whole pages of dialogue from The Lady from Shanghai. I wish I could do the same.
The customary place for the noir hero.. the modern "knight errant".. is in the midst of a world in which there is no clearly defined right and wrong. By convention, the police may be corrupt, or just plain stupid, and just who the real bad guy might be is always a question.. for the audience as much as the hero.
The danger in film noir often stems from trying too hard to beat the bad. In The Lady from Shanghai, Michael thinks he sees an opening to cooperate with the bad and thereby gain a new life.. but this is a miscalculation. The later Roman Polanski film Chinatown feels like a development of these same questions, and there the hope of beating the bad.. actually putting it "behind bars".. is critiqued. Ultimately this effort is fruitless, and destoys those one wants to save.
The another dead end for the noir hero is escape.. actual flight to another place. That is Michael's dream, the reason he gets involved with the shady plan to fake a murder. With $5,000 he thinks he can take Rosalie and find a new life. But Rosalie has no such illusions: "Running away doesn't work. I tried it." This is a theme mined over and over in film noir. Out of the Past, starring Robert Mitchum, stands for me as the definitive statement of the inability to ever get away from the past.
Orson Welles, through his dialogue in The Lady from Shanghai, comes up with more than just a pessimistic statement concerning any fight against the bad, but seems to strive at an actual ethic. We could call this "the noir ethic." OK, so there is no idealistic defeat of evil. No escape to start a new life.. certainly no redemption. Instead there is simply the necessity of making terms with the bad. But how to settle those terms? One can either passively allow the bad to seep into life, or actively define one's own position in relation to the bad, finding a place of relative honor.. from which one can still hold up one's head. Orson seems to side with an active pushing back against the bad. That, at least, seems the point of the end of The Lady from Shanghai in which Michael walks away from the funhouse and toward the beach.
A Strip Mall at Its Height
April 8, 2006
It is easy to take for granted the way our shopping patterns fluctuate. That nice covered buy-everything mall that opened in the eighties seemed like a sure bet to last forever.. and the new strip mall crowded with people also seems to be a permanent fixture. These things change, though, like everything else. Blink, and the popular spot from 20 years ago starts to look like an antique.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article today on the impending makeover for a strip mall that opened back in 1954. The article opens with a thumbnail sketch of its history:
[An ad] bragged that the "SOUTH'S LARGEST SHOPPING CENTER" was opening in Smyrna, which was not much more than a gas stop between Atlanta and Marietta. Developers had bought Belmont Farm in largely rural Cobb County, demolished its barns and chicken coops and covered the pastures with a strip of 20 businesses and 2,500 parking spaces.
The article also ran a contemporary drawing of this pioneering strip mall.
Here in Snellville the strip malls that line Scenic Highway share a similar history. The road, I am assured, used to be empty or store.. actually "scenic"! But in recent years those fields have been turned into layer after layer of stores. Today Emily and I walked around one of the most successful of these strip malls, taking pictures.. The following represents a brief photo essay documenting a strip mall at its height.
Clifford Geertz on Morocco's Suq
April 7, 2006
A memorable, if maddening, aspect of visiting the Middle East is the constant need to barter. Everything, from a taxi ride to a shirt to a sandwich, is subject to negotiation. As a westerner that means the sellers size you up and quote a price they believe you could pay.. not the price that would be expected from the last person who walked out the door. A visitor must mentally store up a spreadsheet of past prices in order to distinguish between the reasonable and unreasonable.
This past week I had the students in my Islam and Africa class read an article by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, “Suq: the bazaar economy in Sefrou.” (Sefrou is a small city a little ways south of Fez in Morocco.) The article brought together a couple of points that had existed separately in my mind. First, after the initial burst of conquering Islam spread primarily along commercial routes. When we imagine Christianity in Africa, the first image that comes to mind is that of a missionary. If we want to imagine Islam, this is the wrong image.. as the figure should instead be a merchant. Second, the experience of the Middle East—as a visitor—is dominated by the experience of bartering. This is not simply a result of poverty (as I might have said after my first trip to Morocco), but an integral part of a cultural system. Geertz provides examples as to how specific religious institutions such as the habus and zawia help to support the bazaar economy. The upshot of these two points is my realization that the market is not simply a fascinating part of a trip to the Middle East, but an important aspect of a distinctively Islamic culture.
The difficulty in bartering is always that one has no idea how much something is really worth. What was the price for this item for the last customer in the shop? My rule of thumb is to low ball as much as I dare, to gauge the response of the merchant. But I never know for sure the location of that invisible line that represents the lowest possible price for the merchant.. the point below which the merchant will actually lose money. Geertz describes exactly this feeling of helplessness in regards to so many important facts:
The search for information—laborious, uncertain, complex, and irregular—is the central experience of life in the bazaar, an enfolding reality its institutions at once create and respond to. Virtually every aspect of the bazaar economy reflects the fact that the primary problem facing the farmer, artisan, merchant, or consumer is not balancing options, but finding out what they are. [125]
In other words, I am not the only person feeling a lack of information. This is the central fact of a bazaar economy.
Compare this to our own economy in which information is often the least of our problems. I can get on the internet and find sample prices for a computer or car or jacket.. so that I know I am in the ballgame when I shop.. Books come with a suggested retail price on the inner label. Various stores run advertisements that list their prices. Success in our economy comes from outdoing your competitors in terms of price.. which means lowering your own overhead or shipping costs to the point that you can advertise your own bargain-basement prices.
Why is it that anthropologists have an easier time with comparative work than textual scholars? Geertz writes:
As a social institution, and even more as an economic type, [the bazaar] shares fundamental similarities with the Chinese, the Haitian, the Indonesian, the Yoruban, the Indian, the Guatemalan, the Mexican, and the Egyptian—to choose only some of the better described cases. But as a cultural expression, it has a character properly its own. And one of the advantages of looking in depth at so particular a case as Sefrou is that it is possible thereby to discern something of what that character is: what is Moroccan about Moroccan commerce, and what difference it makes. [140]
Granted, his goal is to describe this particular case of a market.. not just a Moroccan market, but the market in the town of Sefrou. But it is obvious from this paragraph (and in other references throughout the essay) that Geertz would not dream of speaking at length about what is unique to this market without knowing a lot about other markets.
For textual scholars it is a different matter altogether. It is common to go through a graduate program focusing on one national tradition. What scholars of Chinese or Greek or Persian traditions have written about a problem is rarely invoked. unless that is one’s particular field of study. To introduce a text from another culture demands an instant disclaimer, to the effect of “ahem, yes, this is a bit different of a case, but it is nevertheless interesting for the comparative light it throws on a particular detail that I am examining..” My sense, however, is that scholars in individual traditions are hurt by this lack of confidence in the admissibility of comparative leaps.
My future project on Arabic descriptions of cities is a case in point. As I survey literature on cities, I am struck by books coming from the field of anthropology which examine the city and its history in a comparative fashion. And that makes sense. People need food, water, shelter.. they need space for social institutions such as the family and government.. they need security from outside forces. Since every human city, from ancient Ur to modern Los Angeles, must deal effectively with such universal needs, it makes sense that they would also share many features.. and be liable to comparative approaches. If I am studying various attempts at setting down a city on paper.. through writing its history and describing its institutions and topography.. would it not make sense to examine the way other cultures have gone about that same textual process? I think so, but this would not be a standard way of examining a body of texts from a particular cultural tradition. And in many quarters it would call for a disclaimer..
Suburban Atlanta
April 7, 2006
Emily and I are housesitting this weekend out in Snellville, taking walks again with Quinn. I took some photos representative of the neighborhood. Everything, of course, is now in bloom and quite beautiful.
The Leaven of Democracy:
A Critique of Bush's "Idealism"
April 5, 2006
I propose a variant reading for Matthew 13.33:
[Jesus] told them another parable: "Democracy is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
Democracy, in my version, replaces the more religious minded "Kingdom of Heaven." Like the Kingdom of Heaven, democracy is an element that changes everything. It does not keep separate in one part of the flour, but works its way through the whole bunch. In practical terms, this means that democracy is not a force effective in a single arena of political life, but one that is meant to be applied everywhere.
Bush often gets called an "idealist" when it comes to foreign policy. The grounds for this reputation is contained in his second inaugural speech:
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
This leads to a statement of policy:
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
There are several ways to approach this statement, and the most obvious would be to point up the striking contrast between those words and the facts on the ground. Consider for a moment a different critique.
In the first quotation above we read: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." The word "land/lands" is a stand-in for a sovereign nation. Then in the second quotation Bush pledges his support for democratic movements "in every nation and culture." Both of these quotations thus offer support not necessarily for democracy, but for democracy as the preferred form of government within a nation-state.
If we try to channel Bush's point of view, we could say: Out there are a bunch of.. you know.. nation-states, some big, others small. The citizens of those countries must be allowed to elect their own leaders. The benefit to us.. some people don't understand this, you know.. the benefit will be that these democratic countries won't go to war against each other.. it's that simple. And terrorism will not thrive in a land where economic opportunity exists..
But perhaps Bush misses the radical nature of democracy.. and converts that word into a tool for the stability of the biggest nations. I think of those patriots who threw the tea overboard during the Boston Tea Party in 1773. And we all learn at an early age that these colonists were outraged by the notion of taxation without representation. Is this so different from the protests in countries like Brazil or Indonesia about American policies? In a world as interconnected and bound-together, the idea of getting a vote in one's own (perhaps tiny) national elections may pale in comparison with the desire to have a voice in the larger economic issues.
The decisions made by our American leaders affect the economic well-being of men and women in distant places. And it is not too much of a stretch to say that they are being taxed without real representation.. especially if they come from a tiny nation that does not have a seat at the G-8 summit. I think the patriots that fought for our freedom would understand something of the anger currently directed at the United States.
This is not to say that democratic national governments are not important, and not worth supporting. Obviously they are. But if we stop there, it would be very convenient for the United States and other established and advanced nation-states. The challenge in our interconnected world is to give everyone a voice in the decisions that directly affect them, and that will mean expanding our concept of democracy outside of the confines of the nation-state. Although I am not sure that the United Nations represents the best path to this broader democracy, it is surely significant that any kind of national accountability is ruthlessly undermined by this administration.. a way of letting people know that no vote outside this country matters.
Democracy has another sharp edge.. this time one that many so-called liberals would do well to notice. Democracy is force that should be felt on the small scale too. Think of all those academic departments that work as little fiefdoms, that shun transparency and accountability.. I am amazed how many left-leaning academics can run their world like Cheney and co.
That is another example of how we lose track of the radical nature of democracy. The challenge for liberals throughout the next decades will be to fight for democracy in its fullest sense.. We should repeat these lines from William Blake each morning:
- I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
The idea that such a Jerusalem could be confined to a single nation, such as England, is obviously an anachronism.. This leaven of democracy must work its way through the whole loaf.
More Springs Photos
April 5, 2006
The Creation of Islamic Space
April 4, 2006
In the mornings I am back to reading the Futûh al-Buldân, or the Conquest of Nations. It is a 9th century history that, as its title indicates, outlines the expansion of Islam, beginning in Arabia during Muhammad's lifetime and then spreading to the ends of the earth.. what is today Morocco and Pakistan.
Surprising to me so far has been the way so much more than a straight linear history gets told. In fact, al-Baladhuri is often intent on portraying not only the initial conquest, but also the subsequent history of the place. Right now I am only in Arabia, so I will see if this pattern holds as the story spreads out exponentially.
One might wonder why this kind of historical survey was so popular. Books of Maghâzi, or Invasions, form a major genre of early Islamic writing. Plenty of historical writing was devoted to Muhammad and his life.. and that is easier to understand. But why the evident fascination with the early military conquests?
People like to hear heroic stories about themselves and ancestors.. so that is one possible motive. Although al-Baladhuri does give plenty of attention to names and dates, it is not exactly an epic. There is nothing for the fireside in these assorted stories. No effort to create what we might call characters.
I suggest that these books serve as creators of Islamic space. Islamic time begins with the hijrah, or Muhammad's flight to Medina from Mecca. It is notable that the Futûh al-Buldân begins at just that place in time. As the text comes to encompass new cities and regions, it is as if they are included once and for all in this new alignment of space. Not only does time begin anew from the hijrah, but a new space is defined.
My conclusion is strengthened by the introduction to many monumental local histories that Arab historians compiled concerning various cities and regions. Both the Khitat by Maqrizi and the Ta'rikh Baghdâd begin by recounting the circumstances surrounding their conquest by the Arabs. Everyone knows that history goes back further than that conquest, but for all practical purposes it marks the beginning of "real" history.
The theoretical foundation for such a study I have already worked out in my dissertation. Texts are not simply mines of information or interesting puzzles for critics, but are agents in a culture.. and one way to view these books concerning the conquest is that they are providing a cultural anchor to individual places in Islamic space.
[Selections from the Futûh al-Buldân will hopefully be an early addition to the "Translations" bar on the Old Roads homepage. I am especially interested in getting a workable version online for the sections treating Muhammad's early conquest of Arabian settlements such as Khaybar, which was an example referred to repeatedly in later debates.]
Young Mr. Lincoln
April 3, 2006
Picture of Sufjan Stevens from website promoting Michigan album
One of our discoveries this year has been Sufjan Stevens, a young musician who has embarked on a series of albums that he hopes will eventually cover all 50 states. His first such concept album was Michigan, the state in which he was born. His second album, released in 2005, is on Illinois.
If you want to know something about Sufjan, try the Sounds Familyre website.. There you can find a brief obviously fictionalized bio. Among other things, the bio states that Sufjan was named by his parents after "Abu Sufjan Muhammad, the great Armenian Sufi warrior who slew ten thousand dragons to save the Fairy Princess." If you Google that name—Abu Sufjan Muhammad—you will find several retellings of this brief story, used to explain the name Sufjan. I would just point out a few problems. First, the name Sufjan is a perfectly good Arab name, so I am not sure it needs an explanation. Second, there is nothing Armenian about the name Abu Sufjan Muhammad, "Abu" being simply the Arabic word for "father of.." Third, Armenians are Christian, and therefore unlikely to be Sufi (and therefore Muslim). Finally, come on.. the rest of the bio is a joke so why latch onto this as fact?
The album on Illinois is a minor masterpiece. It selects historical figures and events, along with personal stories, to create a tapestry of national and personal references. Carl Sandburg is connected to the Chicago World's Fair of 1893; John Wayne Gacy, Jr. and Superman (the "Man of Steel") appear prominently in a song. But what ensures that this album— which required some studious reading on the part of Sufjan— never feels disconnected from life is the constant personalizing. The song on John Wayne Gacy, Jr. comes to a self-accusing conclusion, and Carl Sandburg is not simply evoked, but made to appear in a dream and ask: "Are you writing from the heart?"
Lincoln is a figure from Illinois that can hardly be ignored, and he pops up in a memorable stanza:
The sound of the engines and the smell of the grain
We go riding on the abolition grain train
Stephen A. Douglas was a great debater but
Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator
And there is nothing about debate in this album.. which is one of its most refreshing characteristics. It is liberal in spirit yet deeply Christian.. and those who can pick up the code words in Bush's speeches will likewise have no trouble recognizing a Bible reference when it occurs in the music of Sufjan:
All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window
All the glory when He took our place
But he took my shoulders, and he shook my face,
And He takes and He takes and He takes
These lines come at the end of a song that describes, almost ethereally, the death of a girl from cancer. They point to a stra