The Hastings Cutoff

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The Beginning of the Hastings Cutoff in Wyoming

One of the greatest villains of the Old West was not a robber or a cutthroat. He was the author of a book entitled The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California, published in 1845. In it, the author. one Lansford Hastings, recommended an improved route for wagon trains headed to California:

The most direct route, for the California emigrants, would be to leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall; thence bearing West Southwest, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of St. Francisco, by the route just described.

The only problem was that the author did not know what he was talking about. According to Wikipedia,

The cutoff left the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger in Wyoming, passed through the Wasatch Range, across the Great Salt Lake Desert, an 80-mile nearly water-less drive, looped around the Ruby Mountains, and rejoined the California Trail about seven miles west of modern Elko (also Emigrant Pass).

Unfortunately, the Donner Party followed Hastings’s advice as published, although he himself never took that route through the Great Salt Lake Desert. What is more, he passed on to emigrants the fake news that Mexican authorities would stop them if they took the safer route through what is now Southern Idaho.

The result: The Donner party did not reach the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California until winter had set in. They were snowbound near Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake) at an altitude of 7,088 feet (2,160 meters). A number of the party died in the savage winter of 1846, and there was some cannibalism before rescue parties reached the survivors.

Below is a picture of Lansford Hastings around the time his guide was published:

Obon and Udon

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Line Dancing at the West L.A. Buddhist Temple Obon Festival

For a ceremony that honors one’s departed ancestors, the Obon festivals that I have seen tend to be pretty lively affairs. In Los Angeles, the various Buddhist temples take turns hosting the festival, and typically church members travel from one Obon celebration to another wearing happi coats identifying their congregation.

In the above photo, the red happi coat worn by the figure at the far left identifies him as belonging to the West L.A. Buddhist Temple. The figure in the center background wearing a green happi coat is from the San Fernando Valley Hongwanji. On Sunday, there were dancers from Gardena, Venice, Senshin, Nishin, and others that I could not identify.

Women dancing at the festival frequently wear elegant kimonos, though there is no strict dress code. In general, the atmosphere is non-judgmental.

This year, the festival was well attended. There were booths offering Japanese and American food, as well as games offering prizes.

The real reason that I like to attend is the udon soup cooked by the temple’s men’s club. It is top quality stuff, better than the udon offered by by any Japanese restaurant I have ever visited. There is a nice piece of pork in the soup with the usual thick noodles, chopped green onions, and sliced fish cake; and the broth is top notch. It only cost $5.00. I seriously considered ordering a second bowl, but I held back. On the counter was the Japanese chile powder (Shichimi Togarashi) which I liberally sprinkle on my soup.

Bowl of Udon and Shichimi Togarashi (2015)

Martine and I have been attending the Obon festival at the West L.A. Buddhist Temple for over 30 years—during which the udon soup never failed to satisfy my culinary longings.

“The Future Lies That Way to Me”

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Henry David Thoreau

Although I had read his essay entitled “Walking” before, upon re-reading I was struck by this passage about going west rather than going east. Henry David Thoreau never made it out west, unless you include Minnesota. And Thoreau was a sick man by that time.

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to settle—varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for a thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are no towns nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe

In-Betweening

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The Byzantine Emperor Justinian and His Court

If you pick up a world history textbook, you will find that history begins with the pharaohs of Egypt, moves on to Classical Greece, followed hard by the Roman Republic and Empire. Then we have the various barbarian invasions, particularly the Attila and his Huns. Things slow to a crawl with Muhammad, the Middle Ages, then speed up with the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, Communism, and the two World Wars.

All along, the assumption is made that only the history of Western Europe really counts. Latin America? Zilch. Asia? Other than a blip for Islam, nada. Africa? After the pyramids, nothing. Russia before Lenin? Nope, didn’t exist.

One of the periods of world history that is missing from the textbooks are the Hellenistic kingdoms after the death of Alexander the Great. I am currently reading Philip Matyszak’s The Rise of the Hellenistic Kingdoms 336-250 BC. It covers a two hundred year period about which most people know nothing. It’s as if, immediately upon the untimely death of Alexander, the Greeks just said to themselves, “Oh, well, let’s go back home to Greece and drink some retsina.”

That didn’t happen. I guess that Alexander’s conquests were too far east and south to interest the Western European history crowd.

Equally puzzling is to them is the Byzantine Empire. The Roman Empire did not end abruptly on September 4, AD 476. It struggled on in Byzantium (later Constantinople) for another thousand years. Only in AD 1453 did Mehmet II and his Turkish army conquer Constantinople.

Probably more serious is the almost total silence on China and India, the Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates, Al-Andalus in Spain, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia under the Czars.

My approach to world history is a process I refer to as “in-betweening.” The term comes from animated cartoons: It is the process of getting from one point to another in a logical sequence. I have often found the periods that have been skipped altogether shed an interesting light on the Western European mainstream.

On the Greek Sea

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British Writer Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)

He was a British writer who spent little of his life in England. Lawrence Durrell was born in India and lived most of his life around Greece and the Greek Isles. In addition to being a novelist (especially the four novels of The Alexandria Quartet), Durrell was a great travel writer. I am currently reading his Sicilian Carousel (1977) in which he travels around Sicily in a tour bus and, wonder of wonders, makes it interesting. He was also a poet:

Delos

For Diana Gould

On charts they fall like lace,
Islands consuming in a sea
Born dense with its own blue:
And like repairing mirrors holding up
Small towns and trees and rivers
To the still air, the lovely air:
From the clear side of springing Time,
In clement places where the windmills ride,
Turning over grey springs in Mykonos,
In shadows with a gesture of content.

The statues of the dead here
Embark on sunlight, sealed
Each in her model with the sightless eyes:
The modest stones of Greeks,
Who gravely interrupted death by pleasure.
And in harbours softly fallen
The liver-coloured sails –
Sharp-featured brigantines with eyes –
Ride in reception so like women:
The pathetic faculty of girls
To register and utter desire
In the arms of men upon the new-mown waters,
Follow the wind, with their long shining keels
Aimed across Delos at a star.

Itch. Scratch.

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You’ve no doubt heard of a film called The Seven-Year Itch. Well, my life could be titled The Eighty-One Year Itch. There isn’t a part of my body which, at one time or another, been subject to intense itching. Right now, it’s my right leg below the knee, my back, and my “naughty bits.”

In the middle of last night, my right leg itched so hard that I had to sit up and scratch it. When I woke up, I found several trails of dried blood and some new little scabs. Whenever I scratch, the itching is always bound to get worse. Maybe it will occur hours later, even the better part of a day later, but it will certainly afflict me again.

My doctor said the itching on my leg is due to my Type 2 Diabetes, so I have to spread some salve on it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help in the short run.

The back has always been itchy. At several strategic locations around my apartment, I have Chinese back scratchers. Alas, my broken collarbone has limited the reach of my right arm, so I have to enlist Martine to help me, which she usually does.

The only itch that I can stop dead within twenty minutes is my “naughty bits” itch. What works is an application of Triamcinalone Acetonide, also known as Kenalog, which is a prescription drug.

Perhaps the ultimate solution is that I shall have to shed all my skin like a snake.

Martine and the Bible

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Martine at Descanso Gardens

Martine and I are very different persons, yet we seem to get along well in our relationship. For instance, after I broke my collarbone in the beginning of June, she took good care of me, helping me to dress and clean myself and driving me around even though she hates driving in L.A. traffic. One doesn’t forget things like that.

Although I read incessantly, around 150-175 books a year, Martine only reads one book: The Bible. And within the Bible, she reads (and re-reads) mainly one book, the Psalms.

For years, Martine preferred the Good News Bible, a clear and simple translation first published by the American Bible Society in 1976. After a few years, she literally read my hardbound copy to pieces. When I suggested she read the King James Version, she demurred. There was something about all those “thees” and “thous” that she couldn’t tolerate.

Recently she tried the Revised Standard Version, but it still had too many “thees” and “thous.” Recently, during one of her walks, she found a paperback New International Version that she liked and is now reading.

I’ve never read the Psalms. One psalm I read in public was Psalm 23, at my mother’s funeral. Her cousin Baksa Sandor, the Hungarian Reformed bishop of London, Ontario, was to give the graveside service, but he was a no-show. So, with tears in my eyes, I read Psalm 23 from my mother’s bible to the people attending the funeral.

One of these days, I will read the Book of Psalms in their entirety. It seems to help Martine quite a bit; maybe it will help me, too.

DTLA in the Heat

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Los Angeles in the Year’s First Major Heat Wave

Today, for the first time in six weeks, I took the MetroRail E Train downtown to attend the Mindful Meditation session at the Central Library. The reason for my absence? In early June, I broke my collarbone; and it is only now that I feel well enough to attend.

And the weather for my first day back was a lulu. It was 90º Fahrenheit (32º Celsius), with the humidity making it feel even more sweltering. As I have no pituitary gland to control my adrenaline, I took extra hydrocortisone at breakfast and lunch and drank plenty of liquids, including a bill bowl of Vietnamese phó with filet mignon and noodles for lunch.

Usually, I check out three or four books from the library. Today, I didn’t check any books out, not wanting to carry a book bag with my recuperating right arm Instead, I looked at several travel guides to Cambodia and Laos before the guided meditation session began. (I’ve been reading a lot about neighboring Thailand lately.)

After I ate at the 505 Spring Street food court (in air-conditioned comfort), I trudged the three blocks south to the 7th Street Metro Center station at 7th and Flower Streets. As the elevator was out of service (again), I laboriously took the stairs down to the tracks and waited two minutes for the train to Santa Monica.

All in all, it was a positive experience. This first time back, I wanted to err on the side of caution; and I’m glad I did.

“The Pleasures of Fantastic Kind”

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As I am currently reading Lord Dunsany’s The Charwoman’s Shadow, I thought I would give you a poem by H. P. Lovecraft, who admired Dunsany’s fiction:

Fact and Fancy

How dull the wretch, whose philosophic mind
Disdains the pleasures of fantastic kind;
Whose prosy thoughts the joys of life exclude,
And wreck the solace of the poet’s mood!
Young Zeno, practis’d in the Stoic’s art,
Rejects the language of the glowing heart;
Dissolves sweet Nature to a mess of laws;
Condemns th’ effect whilst looking for the cause;
Freezes poor Ovid in an iced review,
And sneers because his fables are untrue!
In search of hope the hopeful zealot goes,
But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!
Stay! Vandal sophist, whose deep lore would blast
The grateful legends of the storied past;
Whose tongue in censure flays th’ embellish’d page,
And scorns the comforts of a dreary age:
Wouldst strip the foliage from the vital bough
Till all men grow as wisely dull as thou?
Happy the man whose fresh, untainted eye
Discerns a Pantheon in the spangled sky;
Finds sylphs and dryads in the waving trees,
And spies soft Notus in the southern breeze
For whom the stream a cheering carol sings,
While reedy music by the fountain rings;
To whom the waves a Nereid tale confide
Till friendly presence fills the rising tide.
Happy is he, who void of learning’s woes,
Th’ ethereal life of bodied Nature knows;
I scorn the sage that tells me it but seems,
And flout his gravity in sunlight dreams!

Romans Durs

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Author Georges Simenon (1903-1989)

He wrote hundreds of novels during the fifty years while he was active. There were 75 novels featuring Inspector Jules Maigret of the Paris Police Judiciaire, plus 28 short stories. According to Wikipedia, he also wrote some 117 romans durs, literally “hard novels,” usually grittier than his Maigret works.

I have just finished reading Le destin des Malou (The Fate of the Malous, 1948) about the young heir of a bankrupt developer who must make his way in the world after realizing that most of his family are completely unsympathetic. In the end, his hero Alain reminds me of Honoré de Balzac’s Eugène de Rastignac from Père Goriot as he resolves to conquer Paris as he stands on the heights of Père Lachaise cemetery overlooking the city. It is nothing short of a masterpiece.

I’ve read approximately half of Simenon’s work—at least half of what he published in his own name. I couldn’t find a bibliography of what he published under various pseudonyms. Although much of his work could be classified as genre fiction, I am beginning to think that perhaps, in our time, the best fiction falls into that category.

In a letter to the author, André Gide compared his roman dur La veuve Couderc (Ticket of Leave, 1942) to The Stranger by Albert Camus, “In my opinion, your book goes much further, and without seeming to—which is the height of Art.” Maybe that’s why Simenon is sadly underrated as an author of mysteries and police procedurals. I like that expression “goes much further, and without seeming to.”

That’s why I am now considering Georges Simenon the equal of other great 20th Century authors. I love reading his works, sometimes even multiple times. I’ve been reading his work for half a century now, and I am deeply grateful that he was so prolific.