Appleton's Famous Son:
Harry Houdini
August 31, 2006
Harry Houdini (1874-1926) claimed to have been born in Appleton, Wisconsin. That turned out to be false. He was born Ehrich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary. Two cities that would be hard to confuse! Obviously he was interested in presenting himself as an American. Upon immigration to the United States his family had come to Appleton, where his father worked as a rabbi for a Reformed Jewish congregation. That employment lasted only a few years, but it was enough to make Appleton "home" for Houdini.
Appleton (and Outagamie County) returns the favor by its maintenance and promotion of a permanent exhibit dedicated to Houdini at the local museum on College Avenue. If Houdini claimed Appleton, then I suppose Appleton has every right to claim Houdini.
Cameras were banned from the museum, and I deposited mine in a special locker. At the entrance to the Houdini exhibit there was a short note addressing complaints from magicians that they are duty bound to keep their tricks secret. The museum countered (eloquently, I think) that they are duty bound to interpret the world for visitors, and in the case of Harry Houdini that will mean explaining his tricks. Perhaps someone came up with a compromise that included disallowing photographs that could reveal these secrets to an even broader audience.
There is disappointment in learning a little about Houdini's escapes. They are so ordinary and follow the recognized laws of physics. He hid lock-picks in his clothing, in his hair, between his toes.. or even in his rectum. There was nothing "magic" about those escapes.. but he made it seem like it by re-locking all the locks after he escaped. He trained himself to hold his breath under water and practiced his escapes relentlessly. The position of the museum seemed to be that the real "wonder" of his escapes was the way he controlled his fear response, lowering his heart rate and keeping calm. As you can imagine, it does no good to panic when thrown into an icy river wearing a straight-jacket.
The museum also has a temporary exhibit on the topic of the Sixties. I had feared some traveling exhibit that displayed the expected political buttons and the signs of cultural upheaval, but this exhibit would have a hard time traveling anywhere, since it traces the period through local references. Who would have thought? Lawrence University had a concert/event back then in which Allen Ginsberg and the Fugs participated, attempting to exorcise the spirit of Senator Joseph McCarthy (buried here in Appleton). The Packers were big news then too, and played in National Football League Championships (note: not in the Super Bowl, which came later). One terrific find by the museum was a pair of cabinet doors hand painted by a Packers fan back in this time. The exhibit could have been entitled "the Sixties in Appleton."
I think the exhibit stands as a reminder of the types of things that will be interesting in the future.. the posters, the performances, the controversies.. This blog is dedicated to capturing what is of lasting interest in the local world.
Academic Divisions
August 30, 2006
A characteristic of the university is its division into separate departments. There are the inevitable English, French, History, Philosophy, Religion, Art History, Anthropology, and Psychology departments. The impression from looking at the departmental roster of a university is that scholars fall into definite academic slots. In practice the divisions are not so neat. At Emory the number of scholars who worked on Classics was greater than the Classics department, branching out to include some in Art History, History, Philosophy, and even the Institute of Liberal Arts (ILA). Likewise, scholars working on issues concerning the Middle East are also often scattered among various departments, from Political Science to Religion (like me!). They may not sit together in departmental meetings, but they find common cause in other ways (cross-listed courses, speakers, etc.).
For all the cross-pollination, departments maintain an individual personality. I recall sitting in a class on Classical philosophy and hearing students bring up ideas of the free-will in Kant or Descartes. Plato could also be important in a Religion or literary context.. but each department brings its own peculiar theoretical issues to bear on the texts. As I sat in the course on Classical philosophy I felt somewhat alienated from my lack of real interest in the department's core issues. More than that, it seemed that the philosophy department had its own canon of important textual touchstones. The Plato of the philosophy scholar is embedded within a different canon than the Plato of the Religion scholar.. and both are different than the Plato of a literary scholar. It is a law of the scholarly nature that everyone thinks that their canon is the only real way to approach a writer or issue. It takes something of a meta-scholarly sensibility to see how different questions are generated by the contexts of various disciplines.
I sometimes search for a more basic division among Humanities scholars. Try this: there are historians and textualists. Everything depends upon someone's approach to primary texts. Are texts an end in themselves.. something to be read and studied for something inherent in themselves? If so, you are a textualist. Or, are texts to be used to answer some other question, such as: why did the Roman Empire fall? or How do you explain the rise of Islam? In this case the primary texts are sources for a larger project. If you fall into this category, you are a historian. Scholars within Philosophy, Religion, and even English departments divide on this point.. the value of texts in themselves or rather as buildings blocks in a further project.
Working on a text such as the Khitat by Maqrizi I am often struck by the preponderance of scholars who want to know something by means of Maqrizi.. some point of Egyptian history or the structural history of a mosque. Much rarer to find someone interested in learning how Maqrizi sees his world and gives structure to it by means of words. But Maqrizi is a canonical historical text.. so I realize I am poaching on the ground of the historians.
First Impressions of Appleton
August 29, 2006
There it is: our house. It is a duplex, as the two doors in the front show. We are on the lower floor. The house is located on a corner and the garage faces the other street. There is no doubt that we will need another room as our family grows, but generally we will be happy with a smallish home.
This is the view down Winnebago Street. The homes remind me of the Queen Anne Hill neighborhood in Seattle—the wooden houses with high roofs. The main difference being the general flatness, as opposed to Seattle's hilly terrain. But aren't those cute houses? And it is a neighborhood filled with these old houses.
Many of the houses have yards filled with flowers and even garden vegetables. Emily wants to have this kind of yard.. that is, if I don't buy us a farm out in the country! I think you have to buy the house before you can uproot the yard and plant all kinds of things..
Did someone say buy? Yes, there are a number of houses available here. Although, this is an unusual case where there are two in a row displaying a for sale sign. Odds are that we will before long be taking a great interest in these signs, and what lies behind them.
Could this be our future house?? If I lived in that house, I would not be moving any time soon..
Walking around the neighborhood, one has no question about what country one is in.. It is patriotic, no doubt. Not the conservatism of the south.. but getting there. We will see what we can do to encourage the local blue.
No question either about the sports loyalties. All Packers. Someone around the corner has a "Packers Fan Only" sign on their parking space. On our way to Wisconsin we discovered an unsuspected confusion that can result from that Packer "G" on the helmet. Emily saw it on a billboard and exclaimed: "The Bulldogs are even up here!" But of course that was not the "G" of the Georgia Bulldogs.. but the Packer "G". Get it straight!!
A short walk (or pregnant run) away is Peabody Park.. which lies along the Fox River.. which empties into Green Bay. Plenty of park benches for a picnic.. plenty of paths for a jogger. It is a beautiful area, no complaints on that score.
The best thing about the area is the quietness I think it will offer to work/write and to concentrate on our little family. For a little while we will contemplate the world from the porch of Appleton, Wisconsin.
We will contemplate, but Quinn will be peeing on all the trees.
The Critical Traveler: Review of
Among the Believers, pt. 1
August 27, 2006
In Among the Believers V.S. Naipaul presents four Muslim countries: Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The triumph of the book is Naipaul's ability to make these four countries stand out as unique places. This is not a book about Islam in the east.. but a book about Islam in four countries. Each country assumes its character by means of a series of reported conversations. These are not the "Hi, how are you? What's great about your country?" types of conversations, but more like "critical" conversations. As I read I started to think that the kinds of questions asked by Naipaul represent something of a philosophy of travel.. a philosophy which separates him from both the journalist and the academic. I thought I would inquire into his inquiries.
1. Defining "conversation"
...he said, with the same unconvincing roughness, 'Write out your questions.'
It was another piece of picked-up style, but it was hard for me. I had been hoping to get him to talk about his life; I would have liked to enter his mind, to see the world as he saw it. I had been hoping for conversation. I couldn't say what questions I wanted to put to him until he had begun to talk... [61-2]
Arriving in Iran soon after the revolution, one might think that a series of factual or religious questions would be asked.. but Naipaul was interested simply in talking, person to person, about life in general. The impossible ideal for this conversation was to "see the world as he saw it." That cannot be fully achieved, but in practice it will mean gauging reponses to all the details of life and noting personal motivations whenever possible.
When technical religious terms come up in conversation, Naipaul tries to discover how that religious language relates to actual life:
I asked how articles of faith as abstruse as prophethood and imamhood strengthened him in day-to-day matters. [197]
or
'Yes, but I know your philosophy, the ideas of your movement. I want something more personal.' [273]
Naipaul wants to know the person, not the person expressed through technical religious terms, but the person in the midst of daily human exigencies. Conversation is what happens when people interact as human beings, and not as "experts."
It may seem simple, but an important aspect of that conversation involves putting together a life story.. articulating a sense of self. It is exactly here that so many of Naipaul's attempted conversations go awry:
It wasn't easy. Not because he was secretive, but because he seemed to carry no connected idea of his life. Experiences floated loose in his mind, and it was necessary to ask many little questions. [172]
If conversation involves two people interacting as human beings, then it follows that each must understand their own life as an individual.. without that conversation can only be disjointed talk. It is the sense of self which allows for a person to relate facts and hopes into some coherence..
2. Other people's journeys
Naipaul often asks people about their experiences abroad: What did you think of your time in London? or America? The following is a response he received from a Muslim in Malaysia concerning a trip to America:
'The food was all western food. Being a Muslim, it was difficult for me to enjoy the food because I had a suspicion that the food is not cooked in the Muslim way. On the second night my programme director brought me to see an X-rated film. And I felt that most of the experience I am going to face in America is not my'—he searched for the word— 'culture, is something foreign to me...
'When I stopped in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, I see the same thing—tall buildings, busy people, modern technology. The thing I could not find is the person with the same religious background as I am.'
'Why were you so surprised? You had gone to a foreign country. A big country, an important country. Weren't you interested in what they had to show?' [298-9]
In another case he speaks with a Malaysian Muslim who has visited London and recalls three things: the people traveling underground, a speaker in Hyde Park saying that 60% of English men were homosexual, and the sight of couples embracing in public (324).
In both of these cases there is an implied criticism: this is how not to travel. These men visited a foreign city but instead of being able to fully experience a new place, they were cast back upon themselves. For Naipaul this inability to travel is directly linked to the fundamentalist version of Islam. It is a religion of external rules, governing even the manner in which a person coughs (320). Faced with the modern world, the fundamentalist must take a purely defensive posture, protected from wrong foods, wrong sexualities, and wrong dress codes.
Naipaul is incredulous: "Weren't you interested in what they had to show?" A little later Naipaul directly comments:
But I think that because you traveled to America with a fixed idea you might have missed some things. [303]
In those criticisms is a positive philosophy of travel: a person must be open to new experience. Travel is not to be undertaken in a defensive crouch, trying to justify one's own ways to oneself, but in a spirit of receptiveness. And the "fixed idea" must be finally banished. A place must be allowed to define itself, and the visitor's mind must be agile enough to update its past ideas.
Naipaul's book Among the Believers works as an exemplary case as to how a traveler can let impressions and conversations mold a view of a place. He introduces ideas, but they are conspicuously tested by experience. The interpretation of a place arises from the details of conversations.. which are then organized into larger patterns.
3. Critical angles
Naipaul recognizes that he is no academic. To get some of his historical facts, he clearly had recourse to academic books, but these facts are only a sideline. There is a brief description of an academic. The story waltzes into the book at the end of a chapter, and involves an Australian who is researching charcoal-burners:
But the Australian I had then met had already spent two months researching into that very matter.Two months! He laughed at my exclamation. Two months were nothing. A scholarly paper required interviews, questionaires, tables. The academic life might appear leisurely, but it had its severities. [412]
This passage helps to draw out the distinction between Naipaul's work and "academic" work. The Australian's research is characterized by: 1) a narrow topic, 2) methodology, and 3) a lengthy period devoted to study. None of these are true for Naipaul's work. He appears to breeze in and out of countries in a relatively short time; he aims at personal conversations that are jotted down on spare pieces of paper; and he takes the widest possible topic, Islam in four large countries. In fact, it is hard to imagine an academic at an American university writing this book.. it is impossibly broad.
Neither is the book a journalistic take on Islam in these countries. Such books aim for a "current events" type of audience, trying to give readers a summary of what they need to know about a certain part of the world.. explaining why gas prices may be going up, etc. Although the book is getting on 25 years old, and is certainly dated in terms of the politics of the countries involved, it remains an important book because of its ability to convey a snapshot of individual Muslims. Naipaul adopts a critical point of view for this form of personal reportage. Time after time the fundamentalist versions of history and lifestyle are critiqued.. not simply reported.
So it remains to define just what this critical spirit might be.. It is not the acceptance of an impassive academic, nor is it the passionate rebuke of a partisan trying to justify his or her own side, nor is it the pragmatic descriptive prose of a journalist.. it is instead the measured judgment by an individual of other individuals and their interaction with the world. It does not carry the overt authority of a study loaded with charts and diagrams.. It is also not as if many important leaders talked with Naipaul, lending the book authority by the force of their names. The only authority possible for Naipaul are conversations and minor incidents recorded with such vividness and clarity that they can hardly be gainsaid. It is a humanly critical approach.. which is not a point of view to be adopted solely when writing a book, but whenever traveling through a new country.
International Ruins:
Preservation, pt. 7
August 25, 2006
For his book Among the Believers V.S. Naipaul made his way through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. In his description of Indonesia he becomes interested in the attitudes of the people toward their Hindu ruins. As is his habit, Naipaul reports conversations with various local informants:
'You've been to Canberra?' he said. 'You've seen the Indonesian embassy there? It's a Hindu building. This isn't a Hindu or Buddhist country. This country is ninety percent Muslim.'
'Borobudur and Prambanam are great Indonesian monuments.'
'Borobodur is something for the international community to look after.'
The international community, the universal civilization: providers of tape-recorders and psychological games and higher degrees in electrical engineering; and now, also, guardians of Indonesian art and civilization. [435]
His Muslim informant dislikes the Hindu influence, seeing it as something to be cleansed away.. despite the country's Hindu past and the continuing presence of the religion on the religious practice of the people. Naipaul brings up two great Hindu monuments, which must be counted as "Indonesian." But the informant demurs and casts the monuments as something for the international community to look after.
For Naipaul this exchange buttresses one of his main arguments, made repeatedly in the course of this book: fundamentalist Muslims have developed a parasitic relationship with the modern world. The modern world offers lots of things to use, like some great goody-tree, but they see no connection between the cultural values of western civilization and those convenient goodies. His informant can thus nonchalantly assume that the "international community" will step in to preserve Indonesia's Hindu monuments, but that is no concern of Indonesia's Muslims.
I approach this brief exchange from a slightly different angle. I think Naipaul takes for granted the mental achievement of efforts such as that by UNESCO to establish World Heritage Sites. The concept seems so easy to us: such ruins testify to human progress and excellence. As I argue in my dissertation, that line of thought depends upon an unspoken narrative of human progress.. a narrative which large numbers of people in our world do not share. Christians in Syria are not interested in Muslim monuments; Protestants in America do not care about Mormon monuments. From this brief conversation reported by Naipaul, it is possible to see that some Muslims in Indonesia don't have a strong connection to their old Hindu monuments.
I think this complements Naipaul's point about the parasitic nature of Islamic fundamentalism. That is a perspective that takes for granted the western world, but also inhibits the ability of people caught up in the modern world.. its complexities and odd mixtures.. from developing an international perspective. Or, more accurately, it leads modern people to adopt a counter-international narrative.
Naipaul provides more evidence of this fundamentalist viewpoint earlier in the book:
The excavated city of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley—overrun by the Aryans in 1500 BC—is one of the archeological glories of Pakistan and the world. The excavations are now being damaged by waterlogging and salinity, and appeals for money have been made to world organizations. A featured letter in Dawn offered its own ideas for the site. Verses from the Koran, the writer said, should be engraved and set up in Mohenjodaro in 'appropriate places': 'Say (unto them, O Muhammad): Travel in the land and see the nature of the sequel for the guilty... Say (O Muhammad, to the disbelievers): Travel in the land and see the nature of the consequence for those who were before you. Most of them were idolaters.'
So theology complicated history for the people of Pakistan. [163]
Again, I think an alternative point can be made. Islam indeed imposes a theological lens on human history, but it also offers some surprising ways to look at the preservation of monuments. Setting up Qur'anic verses at this ruin may strike us as misguided.. but it is much to be preferred over the destruction of the ruins of a past culture (such as the Taliban's destruction of the stone Buddhas in Afghanistan). The fact that ruins of a past culture may have a positive message to teach— "God judges peoples that reject him"— allows, ironically, for the maintenance of those ruins. One can even imagine the writer of this letter to the newspaper Dawn encouraging someone to visit the ruins, as a moral lesson. It is a different narrative than the international human development narrative, but it can accomplish something similar in allowing for the preservation of a site.
The Savrans: A Visit to Madison, WI
August 24, 2006
Being in Egypt this summer we unavoidably missed the event of the summer.. the marriage of Scott and Hannah in Madison, Wisconsin. One of my priorities upon arriving in Wisconsin was to get down to Madison to see Scott in his native habitat. Yesterday we were able to congratulate them in person.. and see a little bit of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
This is the latest of my "back of the head" pictures featuring Scott. The most noticeable difference now is that Hannah's head is there too.. and I am thinking it may be hard to get Scott's head alone from now on.
Looking at Scott looking at the lake, I think about all the places I have seen with Scott.. the sites in Egypt and Syria. One reason I like the back of the head pictures is the way they remind me that I have seen places with other people.. and Scott's presence has been a big part of my enjoyment of some places that are quite dear to me.
A Glance at Fox
August 22, 2006
We are unusually disconnected from the world right now.. waiting for phone service and the DSL connection that comes with it. Our subscription to the local Appleton newspaper has not started up yet. We have no television connection (but that has been our habit for the past couple of years). Yet I have been storing up some comments on Fox News, which we watched for a few minutes while eating a continental breakfast in a motel in Rockford, Illinois.
It was a random portion of the news, but I was struck by how misleading it was. Right off the bat we got a report about the arrests of men of Middle Eastern descent caught trafficking in cell phones. The unavoidable context of the report was the recently revealed terrorist plot to blow up planes crossing the Atlantic from London. A brief statement came with the cell phone story, about how there was no known connection of these people to terrorism.. but truth seemed beside the point. The goal was suggestion: men of Middle Eastern descent are plotting. In reality I am sure that every immigrant group has its share of cell phone schemers.. yet Hispanic or Russian petty crimes are not full of implied threat.
Shortly came another report about Iran's announced intention to respond in late August to the offer put forward by Europe and the United States with respect to its nuclear program. Some "expert" mentioned that Bernard Lewis had called attention to the importance of that August date for Shi'as.. and then with dark reference to Iran's intent to "wipe Israel off the map" the "expert" inferred that Iran was perhaps planning a cataclysm on that August date. So what did the viewer take away from that report? Iran is a present danger, perhaps waiting to surprise us with a bloodbath. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Somewhere in the midst of these reports there was mention of the Democratic response to Republican statements about terror, and the blond woman in the morning group commented on the news: "I don't mind them criticizing policies, but I just wish they would put forward their own constructive ideas too.." (or something like that). That kind of off-hand un-marked commentary is perhaps the most insidious kind of influence.. because it takes for granted a criticism: Democrats/liberals have no real ideas about the fighting terror. Artfully (as I do believe this is a conscious trick) she has settled a criticism in the minds of viewers.
Here is one liberal proposal for the struggle against terrorism: let's call things by their real names. We have been immeasurably hurt by a bizarre refusal to call events by their real names. Rumsfeld resisted the word "insurgents" for a long time.. just as he now refuses to label events playing out in Iraq a civil war. The result has been that we have been fighting the wrong war, with the wrong tactics. Recent events in Lebanon have called forth the same tendency for the self-serving misnomer: Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. What? Maybe a guerilla army, but hardly an advocate of Bin Laden-like tactics. The result is again that Americans perceive events through a falsifying lens. The struggle against terrorism confronts America with a complex challenge, and it is a shame.. a terrible and grievous shame.. that we have leaders and news organizations that refuse to present the situation in its complexity, preferring instead to imply falsities, to scare, and to mislabel the players.
Ardent Desires:
Mammoth Cave National Park
August 21, 2006
The photo above is of the "Frozen Niagara".. travertine spilling over an edge like a waterfall. This was the highlight of one of the shorter tours at Mammoth Cave National Park. Our large group reached it after following a winding and narrow metal staircase. We were warned to watch our heads; no one was doing any passing.
Stepping carefully and crouching, I thought to myself: this is a lot like entering a pyramid, except with more head room. It was just the week before that I had climbed down into the heart of a pyramid at Dahshur.
Dahshur is maybe 45 miles south of the pyramids at Giza. The angle of ascent is slightly less than the canonical pyramids. On its north side is an entrance.. and one goes down and down, crouching the whole way and going one wooden stop at a time. At the end one comes to a couple of chambers, the first of which has unique and haunting shape:
The damp air stank.. and I thought of all the accounts of pyramids I had read that mention bats and the smell of their urine. The bats are gone, but their smell remains.
Despite danger, people have always been ready to descend into the pyramids in search of unknown paths.. and perhaps treasure. One Arabic writer from the beginning of the 13th century noted the following:
In one of these two pyramids is an entrance where people have gone in, leading them to narrow corridors, labyrinthine tunnels, ruined wells, and other things, according to the report of someone who entered. Many people have an ardent desire to enter and imagine that they would penetrate far into its depths. But it always happens that they wind up at a place where they are no longer able to proceed. As for the much frequented tunnel, the narrow way leads to the top of the pyramid, and a square chamber is found there in which is a stone sarcophagus.
The writer is referring to the well-known entrance to the Great Pyramid at Giza.. but the corridor for this pyramid at Dahshur also led to a room where the king was once buried.. I asked a couple who had entered just ahead of me to take a picture:
On my way to this chamber we passed under a ceiling covered with the names of people who had preceded me.. I was pleased to see the name Burton up there:
The number 1276 stands beside his name. Typically, Burton has set down the Arabic year.. which puts us in the middle of the 19th century. I wondered how people got their name up on the ceiling like that, and it was not until I looked through a book I found at the visitor center for the Mammoth Cave National Park that I learned.. one picture says it all:
It is a method that worked equally well in natural limestone caves and pyramids made of limestone blocks.
It is a little hard for me to understand the attraction of caves. They are narrow and it is hard to get a good picture of anything in the dim light. I asked myself why people enjoy caves numerous times over the summer as I read accounts, Arabic and English, of descents into the pyramids. At Mammoth Cave National Park I came across another variety of cave description.. detailed accounts of what is to be found inside the cave.
Sometimes it seems as if Americans saw in caves (and other natural landmarks) exactly what they thought they were missing in their lack of pyramids and temples and other such ancient ruins.. the types of things in which Egypt excels. An author named Alexander Clark Bullitt wrote a descriptive tract on Mammoth Cave (1844), and describes what the visitor will see. Here he actually quotes an even earlier writer:
The Temple is an immense vault covering an area of two acres, and covered by a single dome of solid rock, one hundred and twenty feet high. It excels in size the Cave of Staffa; and rivals the celebrated vault in the Grotto of Antiparos, which is said to be the largest in the world... Every one has heard of the dome of the Mosque of St. Sophia, of St. Peter's and St. Paul's; they are never spoken of but in terms of admiration, as the chief works of architecture... and yet when compared with the dome of this Temple, they sink into comparative insignificance. Such is the surpassing grandeur of Nature's works. [Rambles in the Mammoth Cave 55, 57]
Just like large groups the pyramids and other ancient sites, we had a guide.
I forget his name, but he was quite funny.. Mammoth Cave has been a tourist attraction since the early part of the 19th century, making it one of the earliest such sites in the United States. Then and now there seems to be an ardent desire to experience what is underground.. and guides such as this channel that interest into an educational experience. But I wonder if originally this fascination with the underground stemmed from reports about the pyramids, and the mysteries to be found inside those ancient monuments.
Forward!
August 21, 2006
It is well into 2006, and I did not yet have the Wisconsin quarter from 2004! The other day in the laundromat I remedied that lack, and added it to the collection. I would classify this quarter as emblematic, as opposed to the scenic. It does not provide a landscape or single structure (e.g. the maple trees on the Vermont quarter), but sets down the key emblems of the state. Our new home is symbolized, evidently, by three things: cows, cheese, and corn. And our motto is "forward." It does feel like we have taken a step forward.. and with every day that passes we acquire further trappings of settled life: yesterday it was a washer and drier. Emily's growing stomache is another indication that we are moving "forward" into life. Who could have guessed that this new life would be surrounded by a land characterized by cows, cheese, and corn?
Driving to Wisconsin
August 19, 2006
Last Sunday morning (August 13) Emily and I began our move to Appleton, Wisconsin. While I was in Egypt, Emily had arranged for us to rent a duplex about 8 blocks from Lawrence University. She had also come up with a moving plan. A company called UPack let us load up our boxes on a trailer, and when we were finished they would pick it up and deliver it to our new residence after 4 work days. Meanwhile, we would make the drive to Appleton in our silver VW Bug, our dog Quinn sitting on Emily's lap.
- Day 1: Leave Snellville, Georgia and drive north on I-75 to Chattanooga, Tennessee. From Chattanooga get onto I-24 heading to Nashville. From Nashville we took the I-65 into Kentucky, past Bowling Green and took the exit for Mammoth Cave National Park where we had a cabin reserved for the night.
The first portion of the trip represented a final run through the landscape of north Georgia. We passed by the exit for the Etowah Indian Mounds.. where I proposed to Emily just about exactly two years ago.
Arriving in Chattanooga it was still a familiar landscape. It wasn't that long ago that we made the trip to Nashville for one of Emily's marathons.
We passed the big fireworks outposts along the I-24 in Tennessee, and I insisted that we get a picture of them.. thinking this was goodbye to a southern institution. But that proved wrong as we saw them further north as well.
That is Nashville.. and it was time for lunch. I had suggested we stop at Centennial Park, but with the dog and all our computer stuff in the car, getting adventurous in our stops was not appealing.
In fact, we were big on official rest areas, lying to the side of the freeway.. with helpful signs such as these.
- Day 2: Leave Mammoth Cave National Park and continue north on I-65, passing Louisville and crossing the Ohio River. We continued north to Indianapolis, and it was there that I broke with the route suggested by MapQuest. Instead of going north and getting entangled in the web of freeways near Chicago, we cut west on I-74. This took us into Illinois and through cities such as Danville, Champaign, and Bloomington. When we reached the latter city we went north on I-39, taking us directly to Rockford where we had a motel reservation (dog friendly).
What can I say about the landscape in this part of our trip? It was flat.. but not flat like Kansas. It was overwhelmingly rural, and dominated by corn stalks.
There is a strange beauty to this world that unfolds (or repeats) itself outside the window. The fields are dotted with structures.. houses or granaries.. and the standard electrical poles run forever along the roads.
The cars ran along the freeway and I wondered whether this all seemed blindingly normal to the drivers.. the vast fields of corn and the greenness, the barns and the white houses. Being about a week out of Cairo I was struck by how un-normal the landscape was. It was an American landscape that could be recognized for its singularities as easily as an Egyptian Nile landscape.
By the time we got north of Louisville, everything would be new to us. We had especially looked forward to Illinois.. which will be our neighbor state.
- Day 3: After spending the night in Rockford, Illinois, we made our final short leap to Appleton, Wisconsin. We continued north on I-39 toward Madison and then took the 151 east toward Fond du Lac. From there we went north on I-41 to Appleton.. and our waiting home.
It was an ideal day for our arrival into Wisconsin. The sky was clear and the air crisp. The landscape still had lots of corn fields, but the hills seemed to break them up into smaller blocks. We also realized that we were in dairyland.. and not just because the Wisconsin license plates proclaim Wisconsin "America's Dairyland."
The experience of the American road is inextricably tied to large trucks, such as this one. The consciousness of every driver is necessarily filled with considerations about passing them, or waiting to pass.. or just staying out of their way.
We made this move at a time when gas prices were at a high.. in many places over $3 per gallon. One wonders if someday our road-embracing ways will be curbed.. But when it happens, that will be a shame.. because the open freeway is one of the best parts of America. If I were advising someone as to how they should see America, I would advise a long road trip.. Sure, see New York or Los Angeles.. but drive a thousand miles through the Peorias of our vast country!
Freedom of Speech Tour:
A Review of CSN&Y at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia
August 11, 2006
A few short months ago Emily and I sat in a movie theater and watched Neil Young's concert movie Heart of Gold. Recorded live at the Ryman in Nashville, Tennessee, the video encompassed one important facet of Young's work: the country-influenced "Harvest" songs. That movie followed hard upon the release of Prairie Wind, his latest installment in this line of albums. Given the autobiographical references and the album's release following his recovery from a brain aneurysm, it was tempting to watch Heart of Gold and to see it as something of a career summary.
The new Living with War album demonstrates that while Heart of Gold might be a summary of one line of albums, it is nowhere close to a summary of his work.. it defiantly leaps out of the bonds of country and embraces the kind of rock protest that is best represented by his song "Ohio", recorded for a Crosby Stills Nash & Young album. Although Living with War was not recorded in the studio with that group, it is with them that Young has chosen to tour in support of the album. That choice works for two reasons: first, the harmonic capability of the vocal quartet works well for these new songs; but second, their presence allows for a summary of a different line of albums, which we could call "activist rock."
Young's solo albums are not without social commitment.. but many of them come from resolutely personal space. They have the feel of private musings. From these albums we get such lines as "better to burn out than to fade away" or "the needle and the damage done.." The mega-group status of CSNY appears to allow Young a chance to speak with a more public voice. In the presence of three other stars the call is not to voice the personal, but to speak with a more public voice: to sing lines that four voices can harmonize with.
The concert in support of Living with War was entitled the "Freedom of Speech Tour".. and the call for each member of the group appears to have been to select songs that reflect political activism. That is not too difficult a demand for members whose work includes: "Something's Happening Now" and "Chicago" and "Woodstock" and "Ohio." Only the last of that cluster is actually by Young, but their inclusion in this concert, with Young singing and playing guitar in support of them, reminds that his commitment to activist songs is deeper even than his own songbook.. it is a commitment rooted in a stage he shares with David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash.
It was a shared stage last night. In the early 1970s, looking at a stage occupied by these four, it would have been difficult to decide who was the dominant talent. Looking at them now, it is Young who towers over the others, encouraging them but also blazing ahead in terms of energy and the unending quality of his material. Still it was not Young's concert, it was a group concert. It was CSN&Y. It was a particular stage from which Young has always spoken in a public way.
OK, I can leave now..
August 6, 2006
In Zamalek can be found one of the oddest sights in Cairo: a Harley-Davidson motorcycle outlet. I can't imagine driving in Cairo period, let alone getting around on a Harley! I was tempted to think that the Harley outlet was a front for some western business venture that didn't care about losses. But recently I have run into an actual Harley here in Maadi. I have yet to catch sight of its rider, though:
The Poor of Our Earth
August 6, 2006
For our trip to Dahshur, Harby came up with the idea of crossing the Nile by means of the auto ferry. The picture above is of the moment when the ferry is about to dock, the people and cars ready to stream off and go about their business.
The guy with the colorful plastic containers on his head made an odd sight when he first walked onto the ferry. He walked on, and carefully set down his load at the head of the cars, then came and sat on the shaded wooden benches, right across from me. He pulled out a tiny Qur'an and began to recite a sura.
As the ferry started, a woman, dressed in black, came by handing to everyone a photocopied piece of paper:
It wasn't hard to guess the meaning, but here is her story as it is told by this small document:
In the name of God the Merciful Full of Mercy: I am the mother of 6 children, some of whom are studying in school, and the youngest of the six has been afflicted with a sickness for two years. Their father died 5 years ago and I live in Hijrah for a monthly rent whose amount is 90 pounds. I am sick and unable to work. So I seek from Allah, praised be his name, the Most High, and also from you a small aid in order to help with the support of myself and my six children. God the Most High said in his noble book: in the name of God the Merciful Full of Mercy: "As for the orphan, don't subjugate him! As for the beggar, don't repulse him!" God the great is trustworthy.
Religious language fills her appeal (the Qur'an reader across from me would be a common type). But the main feature of this appeal is its hint of a personal story: husband gone, growing children, sickness both for herself and her youngest child. Her rent is 90 pounds, which comes out to about $17 American dollars.. and she must need food and clothing over and above that.
I noticed in the last Al-Ahram Weekly (3-9 August) an article on poverty in Egypt. It was a rare article that did not jabber on about the shame of Arabs in not taking a more militant stand against Israel.. and detailed the kind of take-home pay that many Egyptians live with:
Speaking from her stable spot on the broken pavement where she has been selling watercress for years, Nafisa said she used to make about LE20 a day when she worked as house help. Due to sudden health problems, she had to quit the profession and was forced to cope with a new situation in which she says she makes only a pound and a half a day. "I need at least LE10 a day... to eat and cover my basic expenses, but I would be happy to be able to make even LE5 a day...
LE20 per day is about $3.50 (and that was when things were going well). LE5 per day comes out to about 90 cents (she would be happy to make that much!)
In Cairo one constantly passes women, dressed in black, often holding a child, who are selling some small thing: a packet of tissues, batteries, crackers.. anything that could sell. And day after day these people sit there and hold out their goods for the passers-by. I have always wondered about the economics of that kind of selling: How much can these women possibly make? The answer is not much!
Men who work as day laborers also come up in the article. The following quotation is attributed to a certain Mohamed, a kiosk operator:
"Look at these young men who keep coming to this workers recruitment spot every day in the hope of making LE2 a day, and compare them to the big people who drive cars and eat very expensive food..."
LE2 is only about 35 cents.. for a day of physical labor.
The bawab (or door-man) for our building is better off. His full time job is to cater to those who live in this building.. picking up food, paying bills, washing cars. He lives with his wife and three young children in the ground floor of this building. He is on the left of the photo below, and those are his three children. (The guy in white is a mystery friend who happened to be there and got included in the photo.)
This past week a bit of a friendship has blossomed between myself and the bawab. For several nights in a row he has come up to the apartment to talk. Through our conversations I have pieced together a little bit about his economic reality. For his full time work he makes about 300 pounds per month, which will be like $45. He has rent free because of his position, but everything else.. food, clothes, transportation, comes out of that basic pay. Look at how cute those kids are: they would do so well in a good school!
I hope I can remember these views of poverty. It's not like poverty is something I have never seen, but I think it went a little deeper this time. These poor people are not those that swell fundamentalist groups.. (the bawab does not even own a Qur'an). They are not exactly the key to fighting the so-called War on Terror. But to somehow contribute to a world that has more opportunities and options for people—that would be a worthwhile undertaking, and it would draw a longer lasting harvest of peace than the billions and billions we spend to destroy people's lives.
The Canal: Maadi Album, pt. 5
August 6, 2006
The town of Maadi was laid in 1905.. a speculative real estate investment. Cutting through the town was a canal named the Khashab Canal. It was bordered with eucalyptus trees. In his book Maadi 1904-1962, Samir Rafaat gives the following portrait of the canal in the years following 1929:
By now, the eucalyptus trees had matured, and the canal remained in perpetual shade, with the occasional streak of sunlight piercing through... In summer, groups of young Maadiites practiced their Tarzan routine, swinging from one bank to the other with the help of long ropes dangling from the tall trees. Occasionally they would miss and end up in the canal. [82]
Rafaat briefly notes also that the canal was "disused" in the 1960's and then filled in. Today this canal looks to the pedestrian like a long park:
You can still make out the aging eucalyptus trees lining the two sides of the park.. and with your imagination you have to add a narrow canal running between these rows.
At times walking along the overgrown and ragged park, one comes across odd remains, such as the above bridge over nothing. It must have been a pedestrian bridge over the canal.. certainly it has no function now.
Our World: Maadi Album, pt. 4
August 5, 2006
It is not an illusion: the blogs have been slowing down lately. Tomorrow is my last day here in Cairo, and soon I will be re-united with Emily in Atlanta. The past couple of days have been all about cleaning and errands.. and an unexpected friendship with the bawab (door-man) Sayyid. But I thought I would post a few pictures of some places that Emily and I frequented while living in Maadi.
That is the sign in the Metro station which reads: al-Maadi.
This was our apartment building. Our apartment was on the top right.
The restaurant we went to on our first night in Cairo.. and on Emily's last night, located on Road 9.
A favorite lunchtime spot. I loved the strawberry juice here..
The grocery store we often went to..
The Neighborhood: Maadi Album, pt. 3
August 3, 2006
The big draw for Maadi is not its stores, but its green quiet streets. The houses can be hard to spot.. almost universally they are guarded from direct views by trees and shrubs. Privacy is important, and people seem to guard against any kind of view of what is going on inside. Many of the houses are well kept up, and one can imagine a diplomat or wealthy businessman living inside.. others were obviously once beautiful, but have fallen into decay (those are my favorites).
Some streets are off limits.. reminding me of nothing more than exclusive neighborhoods in Los Angeles. You can generally bet that an American diplomat or its equivalent lives in these kinds of protected areas. They are off-limits not only to cars but to pedestrians like myself.
Road 9: Maadi Album, pt. 2
August 2, 2006
All the roads in Maadi are assigned numbers. There is a logic to them, only I have not figured it out yet. Road 9 is easy. It runs parallel to the Metro line and is the main business section of the area. This is where we went for restaurants, grocery stores, or souvenir shops.
A Nursery: Maadi Album, pt. 1
August 2, 2006
The following are a few pictures of a nursey just down the street from us. Emily and I walked by it every day on our way to the metro station or to pick up a taxi on the corner. The name of the nursery is: "Nursery of Islamic Beginning." Which strikes me as a strange name. Obviously, it is a Muslim nursery, but I have no idea what that means practically.
The large words (from right to left) read: "Nursery of Islamic Beginning." The words on the book which the children are pointing to say: "Welcome to you" Then the smaller black letters running at the hem of the plants reads: "A Preschool of Islamic Beginning in Maadi."
On Cultures and Lenses
August 2, 2006
In my dissertation I talk about perception and experience. People view the world through the narratives and models that they have grown up with. In trying to describe this point of view I have resorted to the phrase "cultural lens"— i.e. the culturally shaped group of narratives and ideals through which every individual perceives the world. But that is something of an ad hoc term.. and I have long wanted to found that on something a little stronger.
A Washington Post article that came out on Monday (July 31) points out another direction from which this idea of a "cultural lens" can be approached. The article is specifically interested in showing how political bias largely resides in the mind of the beholder. The writer, Shankar Vedantam, gives the example of an experiment done on 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans:
When Republicans saw Kerry (or Democrats saw Bush) there was increased activation in brain areas called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is near the temple, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is in the middle of the head. Both these regions are involved in regulating emotions. (If you are eating an ice cream cone on a hot day and your ice cream falls on the sidewalk and you get upset, these areas of your brain remind you that it is only an ice cream, that not eating the ice cream can help keep those pounds off, and similar rationalizations.)
I thought it was interesting that this "emotions regulator" was specifically tied to constructing reasons. (I sometimes think that the vast majority of human ideas and thoughts are exactly about rationalizing a feeling.) Vedantam goes on:
More straightforwardly, Republicans and Democrats also showed activation in two other brain areas involved in negative emotion, the insula and the temporal pole. It makes perfect sense, of course, why partisans would feel negatively about the candidate they dislike, but what explains the activation of the cognitive regulatory system?
Turns out, rather than turning down their negative feelings as they might do with the fallen ice cream, partisans turn up their negative emotional response when they see a photo of the opposing candidate, said Jonas Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles.
In other words, without knowing it themselves, the partisans were jealously guarding against anything that might lower their antagonism. Turning up negative feelings, of course, is a good way to make sure your antagonism stays strong and healthy.
"My feeling is, in the political process, people come to decisions early on and then spend the rest of the time making themselves feel good about their decision," Kaplan said.
This is one brief and limited view of the "cultural lens" that we are all working with. We find reasons to accept what appears to agree with us, and we find reasons to dismiss what is different.
In this case it is concerning two contrasting points of view within American culture, but this same process must play out within distinct cultures: French and Swedish and Iranian individuals perceive different worlds. Their minds work hard to select and process the information that reaches them in ways that are consistent with their pre-established commitments.
This works for individuals.. but how do we get to a culture? Since a culture is made up of individuals, the perceptions of those individuals will tend to reinforce and strengthen each other.. leading to something that looks like an aggregate "French point of view" or "American point of view." (One fact I find frustrating about right vs. left arguments in the US is how little people realize that both sides share assumptions that the rest of the world does not share.)
What about the lens metaphor? Well, all metaphors of course are imperfect.. Images and ideas are received through the senses, but those things are not perceived "as they are", but rather in terms of how they match up to the ideas and values we already hold. The mind therefore acts as a filter.. a lens, if you will.. for the jumbled world that is out there.. picking and choosing what will make the individual feel good.
One important part of education is its role in challenging that built-in lens. The goal cannot be to provide reasons for seeing the world in the way one wants to see the world, but rather to make each and every perceiver conscious of the way they filter the world.. and to gain more skill at understanding how people from other cultures are not crazy, but responding to the world as it arrives to their mind through their own distinct cultural lens.
