out of the blue

Finished High Windows by Philip Larkin, started and finished A Smell of Fish by Matthew Sweeney. They were both quite good, but I found the Sweeney more engaging just at the moment. Here's a poem by Matthew Sweeney for you all:

Incident in Exeter Station
for Eddie Linden

He came in the door, staring at me.
like he'd known me in another life.
'I've chased everywhere after you,' he said.
'Years and years, I've been on the road,
too many to count. The train-fares,
the bus-fares, the plane-fares…
The least you can do is buy me a pint.'
He plonked his duffle-bag on the floor
and sat on the stool next to mine.
He looked in my eyes like a holy man,
said 'You're looking well, you've lost weight.'
His face could have done with flesh.
His hair needed a cut and a wash.
'I don't know you', I said, 'I've never,
ever seen you before.' He smiled,
the same smile Jesus must have flashed
at Judas, then his face changed
into a voodoo mask, as he shouted
'After all I've done for you!',
turning to face the roomful of eaters
and drinkers, all of whom ignored him
but I knew they classed us together,
so, seeing a train pull up at the platform,
I grabbed my hat, bags and ran,
getting in just as the train was leaving,
not knowing where it was headed,
hearing his roars follow me out
into the green Devon countryside
that I'd never risk visiting again.

I just finished The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. It was quite a good book that opened up a whole new realm of thinking about what we eat, how we eat it, and what the implications are.

Throughout the reading of a book, I am always conscious of how far through it I am. I know generally (often exactly) when I pass important milestones, such as 1/10, 1/5, 1/4, etc. Although to some this might seem to detract from the experience, the analytical portion of my mind needs constant stimulation to keep me from actually being distracted. It by no means keeps me from being completely lost in a book. With a non-fiction book, this is usually limited to extremely engaging passages (intellectually, morally, emotionally). With a piece of fiction, I often find myself at the end without any memory of the process of reading it. Instead, I have vivid images of particular scenes, and an abstract artistic image of the book as a whole. Often this image takes a two- or three-dimensional shape inspired by geometry and biology.

When I finish the main text of a book, I take a few minutes to pause in appreciation and to try to let it sink in. Then, if there are acknowledgments or appendices, I read them insofar as they look interesting. Then I rush off to record the book on my web site. You probably already know this, but my list of books read can be found here: http://www.azureabstraction.com/me/books/

And now, a short review. The Omnivore's Dilemma is divided into three sections, based on three different food-chains (in a broad sense) by which the meal comes to the consumer. The first section, "Industrial", talks about the industrial monoculture by which most of what we eat is corn. The second section, "Pastoral", treats the organic farm food chain, the cultural impetus behind it, and the means by which the Industrial mentality has to some extent perverted the "organic" label. The third section's strength is its strong narrative. It follows the creation of a meal by rules including the following: each ingredient must be hunted or gathered or grown by the creator; it should include plant, animal, fungi and mineral; the dishes must be seasonal. Pollan hunts wild pig, gathers mushrooms, harvests fava beans from his garden, and cultures yeast in his quest.

The first section brings the book to a weak start, to tell the truth. The rhetoric is repetitive and the statistics far too general (and uncited). The second section is the strongest, with a much stronger structure and with enthusiastic prophets defending their lifestyles. The third section is also strong, but it has a few awkward transitions in place and time. On the whole, the book is well worth a read. Just be warned: It's 411 pages of non-fiction. Engaging non-fiction, to be sure, but not everyone's cup of tea. If you get bored with the first one, skip to the second and see if it's more to your liking.

A sidenote: This book pointed me to Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation, which I intend to look up soon. (Aaron Brown should get credit for first bringing the book to my attention.) It's basically one of the core texts of the animal rights movement. I also want to investigate Wendell Berry, who has been firmly on my radar for a long time, but whom I haven't yet read thoroughly. Does anyone have suggestions for where to start? (I've read an essay of his entitled "Pray Without Ceasing", and a very good one entitled "Thoughts in the Presence of Fear".)

Now it's time for a cup of tea accompanied by chocolate and/or shortbread, during which I will be finishing High Windows, a collection of poetry by Philip Larkin.

The rhythm in this poem impressed me, for some reason. It's all iambic tetrameter, with only a few substitutions, but there's a more subtle rhythm going on. Maybe it's with the longs and shorts of the syllables, or something. I find it most strongly in the last two lines of each of the first two stanzas.

The Trees, by Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Because I've been too lazy to post hardly anything about my travels so far, I'm going to give you three photosets. Some of you may have seen them on Flickr already, but many of you probably haven't. There are a lot of pictures up there.

British Museum

Too much to see in one go. I will return.

Norwich on a Sunny Day

My first daylight excursion into Norwich.

St. John's and the Streets of Norwich

I walked into Norwich on a decent day again, and went inside the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. This time, I also took a bunch of pictures around the streets of Norwich. They should give you a better picture of what it means to walk around there. Includes one picture I took for Josh from a previous trip.

In a manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats, the United States was listed among countries where prisoners are in danger of torture. The U.S. complained, prompting the Canadian foreign minister to apologize, saying that "the manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions." [the article]

Let's just make it clear: If you are a prisoner in the United States, you are in danger of torture. It's not a matter of any particular government's views. It has happened, and it will probably happen again. The current administration seems to be clear on that. Bush refuses to sign legislation that will force the C.I.A. to abide by the rules for the treatment of prisoners set forth in the Geneva Conventions. Rules that they should already be following.

Torture can be simply defined as any intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, for purposes of coercion (simplified Geneva definition). Among the tortures authorized by the United States are waterboarding (which invokes an unavoidable fear of drowning that overrides conscious control), sleep deprivation, and exposure to hypothermic conditions. Making Light has an excellent article that goes over these basic techniques, what they entail, and why they qualify as torture. It is impossible to read without getting a sick feeling in the gut.

Besides the entire question of whether torture is effective and whether it loses more information than it gains, it is quite simply morally repugnant. That seems to be lost on the people who make these policy decisions, or at least shielded by some despicable justification. I cannot imagine how.

PB & J and a juice box. It doesn't get more retro than this.

Tim Pratt, New Literary Movement (posted by John Scalzi in his month of writers series). It's short, it's hilarious. Read it.

I didn't get a chance to get online in London (besides a quick, two minute e-mail to my parents and to Sarah saying that I'd made it that far at least), and it took a while to get internet access here at the University of East Anglia. But never fear, I am here, and I have internet access. Finally.

London was great, but more about that later.

I'll be settling in over the next few days, at least in the very cursory have-bedding-and-groceries way. It'll probably take a few months to really settle into British culture. I'm paranoid about talking too loud, queueing improperly, and being absolutely ignorant of the procedures and etiquette here at the school.

I'm entirely unsure of how my day-to-day schedule will settle out in the end, so I can't tell you when to expect me. However, for the moment I'll try to be online sometime in your afternoon PST (10pm - 2am GMT) on most days. Supposedly, British students tend to be social in the evenings and work during the day, so I may end up changing that depending on how the people I meet here function.

This is Chris Sullins, your personal British correspondent, signing off.

Well, I'm sitting in the Portland Airport, waiting for my flight (delayed about an hour, so far). I'm off to London to study abroad, but first I have to live in airports for a while. I wasn't able to get a good deal on a direct flight, and all the multi-stage flights were either an hour margin or 7+ hours. So, I went for the 7 hour ones. This is fine, because I won't risk missing the flight (unless all Dante breaks loose), but it means I spend far more time in the airports than on flights. For an international journey, that's pretty atrocious. If I have consistent internet access, I'll be online as much as possible until Monday early morning (when I'll arrive in London).