Vanitas Vanitatum

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The Brontë Sisters as Painted by Their Brother Branwell

The painter wiped his own image out of his painting of his more famous sisters. The sister on the left is Anne, who signed her two novels under the pseudonym of Acton Bell. Those two novels were Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). She was an early feminist who dealt in her two novels with the issues of parenthood and relationships respectively. Unfortunately, she died young, at the age of 29.

Here is one of her poems, which illustrates the intensity of feelings which pervades her work. The title is from Ecclesiastes 1:2: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas

In all we do, and hear, and see,
Is restless Toil and Vanity.
While yet the rolling earth abides,
Men come and go like ocean tides;

And ere one generation dies,
Another in its place shall rise;
THAT, sinking soon into the grave,
Others succeed, like wave on wave;

And as they rise, they pass away.
The sun arises every day,
And hastening onward to the West,
He nightly sinks, but not to rest:

Returning to the eastern skies,
Again to light us, he must rise.
And still the restless wind comes forth,
Now blowing keenly from the North;

Now from the South, the East, the West,
For ever changing, ne’er at rest.
The fountains, gushing from the hills,
Supply the ever-running rills;

The thirsty rivers drink their store,
And bear it rolling to the shore,
But still the ocean craves for more.
’Tis endless labour everywhere!
Sound cannot satisfy the ear,

Light cannot fill the craving eye,
Nor riches half our wants supply,
Pleasure but doubles future pain,
And joy brings sorrow in her train;

Laughter is mad, and reckless mirth–
What does she in this weary earth?
Should Wealth, or Fame, our Life employ,
Death comes, our labour to destroy;

To snatch the untasted cup away,
For which we toiled so many a day.
What, then, remains for wretched man?
To use life’s comforts while he can,

Enjoy the blessings Heaven bestows,
Assist his friends, forgive his foes;
Trust God, and keep His statutes still,
Upright and firm, through good and ill;

Thankful for all that God has given,
Fixing his firmest hopes on Heaven;
Knowing that earthly joys decay,
But hoping through the darkest day.

A Grim Future?

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Wild Surf Destroying Beachside Homes in Dana Point

Southern California has had a rough time of it over the last two years. First there were the two January 2025 fires that destroyed two Los Angeles neighborhoods: Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Now, over the last several weeks, there was the El Niño from hell that led to the beaches from Los Angeles to San Diego counties being all but destroyed by high tides caused by a seemingly endless series of Central Pacific tropical storms.

A corollary is the superhot summer of 2026 that refuses to quit. Today the beach was hotter than the Coachella Valley. Technically, this is autumn; but it doesn’t look like it. The only thing that’s different is that the humidity is way down.

What¹s next? A killer earthquake along the San Andreas fault? The complete desertification of the California coast so that it resembles the Atacama in Chile? More wildfires? Monster flooding? Killer heat waves that make L.A. resemble a 350° oven (177° Celsius)? Will AI lead to massacres of innocent humans? Are there, in fact, any innocent humans?

Another summer like this one would make me think seriously of moving to Nome, Alaska, or Ushuaia, Argentina (which lies a mere 600 miles, or 966 kilometers, from Antarctica.

But then one tends to look mat the future by straight-lining the disasters of the past. Nature doesn’t work that way. With all our science, we have no idea what will happen next, and when, and how disastrous. Any forecasting based on this year’s events is (hopefully) jejune.

Witches, and Other Night-Fears

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The Cemetery in Hanover, New Hampshire

First of all, my apologies to Charles Lamb for appropriating as the title of this post the name of one of his pieces in The Essays of Elia, which I have been reading over the last several days. Since this is Spooktober, I thought I would write here about two things that scared me when I was younger.

The first was a framed picture of a large thatched Hungarian cottage with a peasant woman fetching water from an old style well. That was all well and good, but the shadow cast on the cottage’s wall from the surrounding foliage looked just like an evil old man with a threatening leer and his hand reaching out to grasp me. It was hanging in our living room, and I had a view of it from our couch.

I wish I could find a copy of that picture. Though it was once a popular subject among Hungarian immigrant families, it was definitely pre-Internet.

The other fright was in my four years at Dartmouth College. All four years, I spent in the dormitory known originally as Middle Wigwam Hall, then as McLane Hall (and it has since been re-named, I understand). It was one of three three-story dorms on a bluff over the Connecticut River. To get to town or the center of campus, I had to walk almost a mile past the Tuck School of Business and the Thayer School of Engineering past the Hanover, New Hampshire cemetery.

In the years I was in college (1962-1966), that road was not lit. I always felt weird trudging past the cemetery at night, particularly in winter, within sight of a lot of old graves. Especially when the walkway was coated with a layer of slippery ice, as it often was.

Somehow, I managed to survive. Sometime later this month, I will post how I got over my fear of heights.

An Ode to Breakfast

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A Full English Breakfast

Since I am reading Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia (1823), I thought I would look at some of his poems. There I found this encomium on the subject of the morning meal.

Breakfast

A dinner party, coffee, tea,
Sandwich, or supper, all may be
In their way pleasant. But to me
Not one of these deserves the praise
That welcomer of new-born days,
A breakfast, merits; ever giving
Cheerful notice we are living
Another day refreshed by sleep,
When its festival we keep.
Now although I would not slight
Those kindly words we use, “Good night,”
Yet parting words are words of sorrow,
And may not vie with sweet “Good morrow,”
With which again our friends we greet,
When in the breakfast-room we meet,
At the social table round,
Listening to the lively sound
Of those notes which never tire,
Of urn, or kettle on the fire.
Sleepy Robert never hears
Or urn or kettle; he appears
When all have finished, one by one
Dropping off, and breakfast done.
Yet has he too his own pleasure,
His breakfast hour’s his hour of leisure;
And, left alone, he reads or muses,
Or else in idle mood he uses
To sit and watch the venturous fly,
Where the sugar’s pilëd high,
Clambering o’er the lumps so white,
Rocky cliffs of sweet delight.

Bibliothecaphilia

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Stacks in the London Library

Books are a major part of my life. I am grateful that I discovered a love for books before all the digital simulacra have taken over the minds of the populace. Therefore I was delighted to discover this passage in a piece by Charles Lamb entitled “Oxford in the Vacation” in his Essays of Elia (1823). The word “Bodleians” is a reference to the libraries of Oxford University, about which more can be found by clicking here.

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.

I will keep these words in mind as I take the train downtown tomorrow to Los Angeles’s Central Library, which is celebrating this year its centennial at its present location.

Stille Nacht

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Nazi POWs in Italy

The title of this blog is German for the well-known Christmas carol, “Silent Night.” It tells of an incident during the Nazi retreat in Tuscany where things could have gone south very fast, but didn’t. The tale is from Iris Origo’s excellent War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944.

In the afternoon, while I am with the children in the garden rehearsing the ‘Sleeping Beauty’, I hear a lorry drive up, and some of these same German troops come tramping, fully armed, into the garden. They do not look attractive. I go up to them, not without some inner apprehension, and ask them what they want. But the answer is unexpected: ‘Please—wouldn’t the children sing for us?’ The children sing O Tannenbaum and Stille Nacht (which they learned last Christmas)—and tears come into the men’s eyes. ‘Die Heimat [The Homeland]—it takes us back to die Heimat!’ So they climb into their lorry and drive away.

Big Money!

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How Can a State Senator Fight Trump?

It happens every election. There is always a BIG MONEY candidate who spends millions stuffing the mailboxes and smartphone memories of voters. They start early in the race and keep spending the big bucks until voters are sick and tired of hearing from them. In the last election, it was Tom Steyer for Governor of California. He lost. Prior to that, it was a developer named Rick Caruso running for Mayor of Los Angeles. He lost too.

In recent years, California voters have rejected candidates who looked to be buying their way into elected office. I rather suspect the same thing will happen to Brian Goldsmith. It doesn’t matter that he is opposed to Trump. The only California State Official whose opposition to Trump matters is State Attorney General Rob Bonta, who uses the courts to fight Trump’s questionable tactics punishing California voters for not liking him.

I for one will not vote for Goldsmith. If necessary, I will write in Martine’s name as my pick for State Senate. She would definitely be more conscientious, and she wouldn’t be corrupt. (Even though she’s a Republican, but that’s a long story that will be told elsewhere.)

The next five weeks are bound to be exasperating as billions of dollars are spent trying to convince voters to select various (mostly) power-hungry politicians and questionable propositions. As for the propositions, I vote NO on all of them. Hidden deep within the bowels of most propositions is legal language showing that the proposition is not what it claims to be. So if I vote them all down, they are not likely to adversely affect me.

As for the candidates, when I receive my ballot, I will hold my nose and try to make the most intelligent choice I can, given the available information.

3D

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Wearing Glasses for a 3D Movie

I don’t see many movies in theaters these days, but today Martine and I went to the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo to see a 1953 3D movie. The film was The Maze released by Allied Artists and directed by William Cameron Menzies.

In the titles, Menzies was credited as Production Designer and Director. It was an appropriate choice, as this film was by far the most visually elegant 3D film I have ever seen. The sets in the old Scottish castle that was the scene of most of the action were beautifully designed. Never mind that the script and acting were not up to the mark.

Similar to the Menzies films I had previously seen—such as Things to Come (1936) and Invaders from Mars (1953)—the film was beautiful to look at, but at times simply laughable.

The only classical 3D films I remember seeing were André de Toth’s House of Wax (1953), Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954), and Arch Oboler’s The Bubble (1966). I have seen some more recent 3D productions, such as James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), but was disappointed by all the computer-generated imagery (CGI).

Although I enjoyed The Maze, even with its ridiculous moments, of which there were many, Martine had problems making the 3D glasses that were handed out work for her. For some reason, she was unable to see properly through the left lens. Like me, Martine wears glasses; but she has eye problems that might make watching 3D movies more problematical for her.

赤松

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Bill Porter (aka Red Pine)

It all started with a book of Chinese poems I picked up at random from the shelves of the Central Library. It was called Dancing with the Dead: The Essential Red Pine Translations. It turns out that Red Pine (Chinese: 赤松) is the pen name of one Bill Porter, an American writer known for his translations from the Chinese of ancient poetry. I guess that’s where “the Dead” in the title comes from.

That book, which I read in April, opened a whole new world to me. I had read Chinese poems in translation before, from translators like Arthur Waley, Kenneth Rexroth, and Ezra Pound. But I had the feeling that Red Pine was somehow closer to the original. Like this short poem from a poet who calls himself Cold Mountain:

Looking for a refuge
Cold Mountain will keep you safe
a faint wind stirs dark pines
come closer the sound gets better
below them sits a gray-haired man
chanting Taoist texts
ten years unable to return
he forgot the way he came

If you are interested, I sugget you begin the way I did, by reading Dancing with the Dead: The Essential Red Pine Translations. It excerpts some of the best selections from his thirty-odd books containing selections from such poets as Cold Mountain, Stonehouse, Tao Yuanming, Wei Ying-wu, and Liu Zongyuan.

Here is a poem from Tao Yuanming:

With the passing days and months
as you leave childhood behind
good fortune won’t be undeserved
but disaster easily earned
rise early and retire late
I hope such habits are yours
if they aren’t
so be it

Two Girls Reading

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Two Girls Reading, c. 1890-1891, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Frances and Armand Hammer Purchase Fund, photo © Museum Associates/

There are two reasons why I am not particularly fond of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Years ago, I signed up as a member. The museum cashed my membership check but then proceeded to pretend that I had never joined. Secondly, I am not enamored of most modern art; and I think the museum has extensive dubious holdings in that area.

When I did go to visit LACMA, I fell in love with a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir entitled “Two Girls Reading.” I have always thought of it as one of the must successful paintings of the whole French Impressionism movement

Many a time, I would stand for upwards of a half hour admiring the painting. I have always loved Renoir and have fond memories of visiting a major Renoir exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston over forty years ago.

The other section of LACMA that I liked were the ancient Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese religious art.

Since the museum has gone on a major development kick with new buildings and prohibitive admission fees, I have not seen fit to go back and visit. I liked the old buildings better than the new ones and feel that the people in charge are empire building.