Sunday Marrow

The late August temps are surprisingly mild compared to recent summers of heat domes and wildfires. This summer, I’ve noticed “We Have AC” signs on businesses that solicit schvitzy passersby.

Back-to-school time always brings excitement and renewal for me at any age. It’s an instinctive refocusing on hearth and home, ancestrally, vestigially preparing for the harvest and long cold winter.

My parents provided safety and comfort for my sister and me. My fondest memories are walking through the front door from a day of untethered play to a steamy kitchen with warm food bubbling, the purpling dusk silhouetting the bare November trees. My mother chopped, and my dad sipped a cold beer after a New York City commute to the suburbs every day for 20 years. I noticed his quiet satisfaction, not desperation, in being home. He told me to put on socks because it was getting colder.

I lounge supine on the roof deck under a sun sail, reading John William’s Stoner. It’s a novel I picked up randomly at Barnes & Noble because the cover was intriguing: an introspective man looking down, “STONER,” beguilingly minimalist across the cover. The title reminded me of the Grateful Dead and a childhood friend named John, a “stoner” with a collection of live Dead concerts he flipped onto his tape deck and smoked a bowl. He lived in the present.

Sometimes, judge a book by its cover. It is a riveting novel about an existential man, William Stoner, who plays the long game unwittingly in a search for elusive happiness. As I’ve aged, happiness has always been elusive, with ebbs and flows. Happiness is accepting that there are vicissitudes.

In John Williams's novel Butcher’s Crossing, a young Harvard student named William Andrews takes some time off from his urbane East Coast surroundings to explore the wilderness. He ends up in Butcher’s Crossing, Kansas, to meet an acquaintance of his father’s, J.D. McDonald, who runs a buffalo hide business.

An excerpt:

Young people," McDonald said contemptuously. "You always think there's something to find out."

"Yes, sir," Andrews said.

"Well, there's nothing," McDonald said. "You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you — that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain't done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."

"No," Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. "That's not the way it is."

"You ain't learned, then," McDonald said. "You ain't learned yet. . . .

Today’s lesson: How to suck the marrow out of Sunday?

41,335.05USD

+243.63(0.59%) ⬆️

Moscow, Idaho

The drive from Pullman to Moscow, Idaho, is 8 miles. When you first cross the border into Idaho, the Appaloosa Museum and Heritage Center is next to Walmart and La Quinta. The museum documents the history of the Appaloosa horse breed in the region.

The Nimíipuu (Nez Perce), an Indigenous people, bred horses on the Columbia River Plateau. European settlers called them “Nez Perce,” which means “pierced nose,” but they were mistaken for the Chinook tribe. Today, the Nez Pierce has a population of 3,500, and many live on the reservation in Idaho, a tiny fraction of their land systematically taken treaty by treaty from the United States. As valuable resources like gold and timber were discovered on their land, the United States reneged.

There is little, if any, proof “Moscow” was named after the Russian Capital, but Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff, nonetheless, opened his Moscow-to-Moscow world tour in Idaho in 1991.

The Palouse Mall and the University of Idaho, another land grant University, are on West Pullman Road, across from each other. It is “Anywhere, USA,” with box and chain stores. We eat at Jack Jack’s Diner because it reminds us of an East Coast diner with neon and a mirrored stainless steel facade. The friendly waiter directed us to “the next street over” for tourist shopping.

South Main is in historic Downtown Moscow. It has coffee shops, bookstores, vintage clothing boutiques, restaurants, bars, ice cream, antique and kitsch stores, and feels like a college town.

Photo: University of Idaho

A giant grain elevator is a reminder of the agricultural history of Latah County and the Palouse. Hummel Architects conceptualized the structure for modern use to draw visitors.

I pick up a rusty license plate, a book on “cool” from the late seventies at Hello Everything, and a rugby shirt on a sale rack outside Revolver. I am intrigued by a recipe stand, so I flip through someone's antique recipes and find “Mayonaise Cake.” It's a Depression-era recipe without milk, butter, or eggs.

There are two movie theaters: the Nuart and Kenworthy. The Kenworthy shows classic movies, and the Nuart, a former first-run theater, is now a Christian Ministry like the Cordova Theater in Pullman.

A lone RFK Jr. sign is on the side of the four-lane road. I noticed his book The Wuhan Cover-Up in a local bookstore.

1956

The district is quiet and clean. I don't see unhoused shelters against buildings or down alleys. Drug use behavior is unseen. Bike riders are asked to walk their wheels on sidewalks.

We plan to go to the McConnell Mansion Museum, but its website hours and a sign on the old house contradict each other, so it's closed. We get snacks and drinks at the Moscow Food Co-Op, an upscale grocery with a deli and coffee shop. Fake revolution is in the air.

Outside Oasis

We are driving to the village of Magnolia for only the second time since moving to Seattle 8 years ago. At times, Magnolia feels like you are not in Seattle. To get to the village, you ascend Dravus, a steep neighborhood road that should never have been a road. The topography secludes Magnolia, so I can imagine residents staying put when they can and only leaving as needed.

The village feels like a small suburban town. West McGraw Street defies the trends of other Seattle shopping thoroughfares. Long-standing businesses like Gim Wah mix with coffee shops, gift shops, pubs, pizzerias, obligatory Starbucks, and Albertson’s in buildings with mid-century masonry.

Residents eat lunch or drink iced coffee under mature trees to avoid the midday heat. I noticed a bus stop sign with a zig-zag pole, a thoughtful resident-initiated project.

Camp kids play sports at the Magnolia Playfield. We stop at the Magnolia Garden Center for some florals. The staff member talks about the Mariners playing the Astros this weekend. He expects “like every year” for the M’s, currently clinging to a one-game lead in the West, to fade by October.

He talks about the historic 2000 team that almost beat the Yankees to go to their first World Series.

***

We drop one of our kids off at the Bon Odori Festival at the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Church, park in the C-ID, and walk around. I fondly remember painting noodles in Maynard Alley. I stopped to view a six-story mural I helped design for Uncle Bob’s Place. The mural faces South Jackson and is visible from the I-5.

The streets are quiet. People in Sounders and Mariners jerseys kill time before evening games at T-Mobile and Lumen. Since the pandemic, many storefronts have remained boarded up. We shop at Kobo, a Japanese gift shop on South Jackson Street. I purchased a clay necklace and Ellie a lacquer-style display shelf.

Some businesses have not removed the plywood to protect against break-ins and vandalism. A cut-out in the plywood with a flashing “Open” sign is sometimes the only indication that the business is still operating.

We walk towards Hing Hay Park. Open drug use and behavior are conspicuous. Outside Oasis, a woman with open sores on her legs asks for money. Asian kids in fashionable street clothing -The Godfather logo across baggy shorts- order bubble tea. I get a brown sugar milk tea with boba, and we walk to Uwajimaya.

Older people sit on walkers outside International House, an affordable apartment building built in 1979 and renovated in 2018. It might be cooler outside than in apartments without A.C.

The atrium lobby and central glass facade were design features of their time, often seen in office buildings, industrial parks, and malls to elevate otherwise utilitarian architecture.

Growing up on Long Island, glass followed suburban sprawl into strip malls and shopping centers with an anchor store and neon trim.

I purchased Tokyo Style by Kyoichi Tsuzuki in Kinokuniya. First published in 1993, the photographs documented the city’s residents as they lived. The book continues to challenge the minimalist monastic aesthetic that Westerners fetishize.

Uwajimaya is always busy with locals and visitors eating in the food court or shopping for Asian ingredients. Ellie loves the household section that features beauty products, cooking utensils, Daruma, Kokeshi, Noren, rice bowls, chopsticks, and kawaii gifts.

***

The M’s and Astros are tied for first place on Monday morning, losing two out of three games.

Rats

We make squared figure 8s around the neighborhood like Etcha Sketch. Ellie admires front yard gardens but is disappointed by a bulldozed house, which includes rose bushes she had planned to transplant.

Old West Woodland houses disappear overnight - a heap of lumber, plumbing, and floral wallpapered plaster remains. An excavator is parked at an angle halfway up the heap as if it was quitting time, and the workers stopped mid-task.

In Tetris configurations, foundations are mapped out with stakes and twine to fit as many units on one plot as possible. Pieces of ripped cloth are tied on the twine in intervals to remind humans that there is twine to trip over.

🟥🟥🟥🟥

🟥 🟥

🟥 🟥

🟥 🟥

Analog skills will be in demand in the future when energy systems and data servers are breached and disrupted. Cash under-the-mattress thinking is an intelligent strategy.

Credit cards, electric cars, WiFi, refrigeration, smartphones, government, law enforcement, medical support, and anything in your life that is dependent on energy and data systems could cease to work.

Build a fort, start a fire…

In a scene from Rumaan Alam’s book Leave the World Behind, G.H. Scott, an Airbnb rental owner, shows up at his rental property to escape an event happening in the country's urban areas. The renter, Clay Sandford, and his family, already experiencing WiFi outages and becoming increasingly fearful, are distrustful, but they allow him to stay the night.

G.H., who alludes to having some inside knowledge of what’s happening, begins to talk openly to Clay.

G.H. Scott: A conspiracy theory about a shadowy group of people running the world is far too lazy of an explanation. Especially when the truth is much scarier.

Clay: What is the truth?

G.H.: No one is in control. No one is pulling the strings.

We are sure that our way of life will always be because we believe the selected narrative says it will always be. The truth is that no one is swooping in to save us from ourselves. If systems show inklings of catastrophic failure, humans will begin planning to save themselves like rats on a sinking ship.

Marshall McCluhan Would Disagree

I love the analog comment on one of our DIY fliers, especially when related to Marshall McCluhan because he once said, “I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.“

Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He wrote:

Memes (discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on) are to culture what genes are to life. Just as biological evolution is driven by the survival of the fittest genes in the gene pool, cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes.

He also said, “The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”

The digital meme reassures in uncertain times but is a closed feedback loop. A good meme is humorous with some verity and the viral apparatus of social media. It shuts down discourse and is circulated in algorithmic vacuums of like-minded avatars. It is a salve for confirmation bias, a brief conclusion, a foolproof amuse-bouche for the choir.

McCluhan, himself, said, “Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition”

But patterns change and the simple absolute meme has a shelf-life, vulnerable in its oneness to the cruel tick of time.

In “The End of Memes or McCluhan 101,” an article in Medium,

Memes are “democratic” and psychographically weaponized: Unlike one-size-fits-all propaganda, you get to choose between Coke or Pepsi. Memes are meaningless and you can’t argue with them. Just like television. Just do it! (Don’t,think about it.)

To use McLuhan’s own terminology, memes have now become obsolete. By saying this, McLuhan was pointing to a special kind of death, a state in which something is everywhere but is no longer psychologically consequential. Walking dead, if you will. Memes today are like George Romero’s zombies coming to eat our brains, and increasingly, we all recognize this. We are “getting out” and perhaps even being “woke” as we wise up to the end of memes.

Tropic of Capricorn

I am committed to reading a print book 30 minutes a day. My Habit Tracker keeps me on task. It does not seem like a lot, but I am exercising my brain to focus on the act of analog reading. My ability to focus and get lost in a book will return in time.

My first print book of the summer is Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller. It was published in 1939 by French publisher Obelisk Press. The semi-autobiographical book recounts Miller’s life in Brooklyn during the 1920s when he worked a day job to support his fledgling writing career. Tropic of Capricorn was published five years after his most recognized book, Tropic of Cancer, (1934) but predates his time in Paris, where the latter takes place.

Because of Miller’s sexual content, Tropic of Capricorn, as well as Tropic of Cancer, was banned in the United States until 1961 for being “obscene.” Obscenity trials followed, and “free speech” was tested. In 1964, The Supreme Court ruled the books were non-obscene. I wonder how today's Court would rule.

Reading Miller as an impressionable teen, my friends and I only read the sexual content. That is what Miller was known for, his schtick. Obelisk Press and founder Kahane published “DBs” or “dirty books.” It felt like you were sneaking a peek at a Playboy.

Today, I find his writing misogynistic and forever an embarrassing document of its time. It’s shockingly sophomoric. While other books had misogynistic characters, Miller employed a first-person semi-autobiographical voice, which embodied him.

Elissa Strauss, in the 2015 Elle article “10 Misogynistic Novels Every Woman Should Read,” says, “We need to read books by and about macho, sexist proto-frat boys because they are our past.”

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

For Whom the Bells Toll by Ernest Hemingway

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Adventure of Auggie March by Saul Bellow

Women by Charles Bukowski

Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Still, Tropic of Capricorn captures 1920s New York City and the “Lost Generation,” a term coined by Gertrude Stein to define many directionless young men and women after World War 1 and before the Great Depression. Many ex-pat writers, including Miller, moved to Paris to escape the country's increasingly Conservative values and rapid capitalist growth.

In addition to misogyny, Miller used racist language and stereotypes to describe the diverse ethnicities residing in close quarters in a sweltering, un-air-conditioned New York City where toxic industry spilled into gutters in horse blood, leather tanning dyes, and dry cleaning chemicals.

Petty theft, drinking, fights, and rapey behavior were common in Miller’s world, whether true or not. He writes that he and his cousin Gene beat a kid to death but were never caught.

I'm thinking now about the rock fight one summer’s afternoon long long ago when I was staying with my Aunt Caroline up near Hell Gate. My cousin Gene and I had been corralled by a gang of boys while we were playing in the park. We didn't know which side we were fighting for but we were fighting in dead earnest amidst the rock pile by the river bank. We had to show even more courage than the other boys because we were suspected of being sissies. That's how it happened that we killed on of the rival gang. Just as they were charging us my cousin Gene let go at the ring leader and caught him in the guts with a handsome-sized rock. I let go almost at the same instance and my rock caught him in the temple and when he went down he lay there for good and not a peep out of him. A few minutes later the cops came and the boy was found dead. He was eight or nine years old, about the same age as us. What they would have done to us if they caught us I don't know. Anyway, so as not to arouse any suspicion we hurried home; we had cleaned up a bit on the way and combed our hair.

Miller’s writing doesn’t hit the same way as it did in my youth. As a self-proclaimed self-taught writer, Tropic of Capricorn has no structure, character development, or narrative arc. It's a rambling, run-on sentence. Its value is that we can question why his work was published in its time.

***

39,112.16USD

-299.05(0.76%) ⬇️

Cell Collision

Cell Collision is a collection of digital studies that meditates on technology, nature, capitalism, human identity, and their ligamentous relationships. Now available on issuu.

Triggers Now Available For Digital Download

Triggers is a collection of meditations on memory and identity in a digital age. I use various media -digital and analog-to create a meaningful and cohesive document for an elusive future. Grammarly, an AI-powered app, edited text. Slidebook provided the layout. It’s available as a digital download on Issuu for $1.99.

To purchase Triggers.