Winter XVI. Art is long... + Dogs & men

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter XV. Treehouse

I have been dull to-day, haunted by the thought of how much there is that I would fain know, and how little I can hope to learn. The scope of knowledge has become so vast. I put aside nearly all physical investigation; to me it is naught, or only, at moments, a matter of idle curiosity. This would seem to be a considerable clearing of the field; but it leaves what is practically the infinite. To run over a list of only my favorite subjects, those to which, all my life long, I have more or less applied myself, studies which hold in my mind the place of hobbies, is to open vistas of intellectual despair. In an old note-book I jotted down such a list -- “things I hope to know, and to know well.” I was then four and twenty. Reading it with the eyes of fifty-four, I must needs laugh. There appear such modest items as “The history of the christian Church up to the Reformation” -- “all Greek poetry” -- “The field of Medieval Romance” -- “German literature from Lessing to Heine” -- “Dante!” Not one of these shall I ever “know, and know well”, not any one of them...

It all means, of course, that, owing to defective opportunity, owing, still more perhaps, to lack of method and persistence, a possibility that was in me has been wasted, lost. My life has been merely tentative, a broken series of false starts and hopeless new beginnings... If I could but start again, with only the experience there gained! I mean, make a new beginning of my intellectual life, nothing else, O heaven! nothing else. Even amid poverty, I could do so much better...

And, in doing so, become perhaps an owl-eyed pedant, to whom would be for ever dead the possibility of such enjoyment as I know in these final years. Who can say? Perhaps the sole condition of my progress to this state of mind and heart which makes my happiness was that very stumbling and erring which I so regret.

Alpha.

His strong finish here makes up for a weak middle. That you could have lived your life so much better if only -- fill in the exception -- is such a natural fallacy. There are a wide range of things I feel I know and even a few I believe I know well, but the range of things I know incompletely or not at all is even vaster than Gissing could have imagined. There are books I wish I had read sooner, but more that I feel I read at just the right time. And even those books, had I read them earlier, I would not have understood or enjoyed in the way I understand and enjoy them now. Rather, I suspect much of the time I spent reading philosophy in my late teens and twenties was mostly wasted and could have been better spent on other things -- but I was interested then in the same subjects that interest me now, and I have never understood why other people choose to put off or ignore the most profound questions. And as little as I “got” then, I do feel it set the table for my later reading. If the past few years are any indication, I expect my 60s to be my most productive decade when it comes to intellectual pursuits. Without any plan to speak of, I seem to be heading in the direction of filling in the great gap in my knowledge of history and related subjects between Classical and Modern times. The four centuries prior to the most recent two, are, if not a dark age, at least a dim age for me, and I’m working to correct that.

Dogs and ants and people.

This probably belongs back with HR’s section about blackberries satisfying his hunger. Nature tends to generously meet the needs of its members -- except when it doesn’t. Horses, deer, squirrels, birds, all live off the fat of the land as do insects... and in so many curious ways. Humans too, in their hunter-gatherer and even subsistence agricultural manifestations, are well supplied by nature. Anyone with any experience of gardening is familiar with the sometimes frightening fecundity of zucchini and other kitchen garden staples. To go a bit further, nature will (for the non-vegetarian) turn a few chickens, sheep, cows, or goats -- plus any random forage -- into an endless supply of protein. It's only when we specialize, urbanize, and populate ourselves out of this State of Nature, that the bounty of nature becomes monetized and we are forced to work for our living.

When I see a beggar with a dog, a common sight here, I have complete sympathy with the dog but little with the human. If there were horses or goats around, my sympathy would be even more engaged. Why am I so much more judgmental about people not being “productive” than I am about dogs or cats or horses? I do have a special fondness for bumblebees, but not for ants or other bees that are similarly industrious. Is this a result of my Protestant upbringing? Part, perhaps even most, of my lack of sympathy is a consequence of how the more feral of these denizens of the street trash my neighborhood. If they didn’t leave a trail of clothes, blankets, urine, and feces behind them, I might view them differently, as I did in the now distant past.

But it’s still more than that. When I see these dogs I see them as being “good” dogs -- doing what they are supposed to do which in this instance is protecting and supporting their human. Really, it’s not a bad life for a dog, though I worry about them getting fed regularly -- but then most house pets are over-fed while spending less social time than they would like with their “pack”.

My attitude towards these people is all the worse in that it contradicts my belief that people in general are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Though in my defense I don’t really care so much that they not live this way in general but that they not do it in my neighborhood. It’s not like I view them as being less virtuous than people working hard at pointless, but well paid, endeavors. The office drone contributing to a meaningless, and most likely destructive, global economy is at least not pissing on my building -- though he may be trashing the world in a more destructive, though less visible, manner. In fact, people living on the street -- despite the trash swirling around them -- are ideal citizens when it comes to consumption and carbon footprint. They are among the few people, in a Western society, who beat me when it comes to sustainable lifestyle. Perhaps it’s a combination of my Protestant background and my German and Scots fondness for visual order and tidiness. Now that I think of it, the only animal I can think of that does not live a life consistent with visual order and tidiness in the pig -- to be specific, the wild boar. In their tilling of the earth, they match man for self-centered destructiveness to the environment that sustains them.

Next: Winter XVII. History.

Winter XV. Treehouse + Gissing + Bars

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter XIV. Lancashire

Nothing in all of Homer pleases me more that the bedstead of Odysseus...

Did anyone ever imitate the admirable precedent? Were I a young man, and an owner of land, assuredly I would do so. Choose some goodly tree, straight-soaring; cut away head and branches; leave just the clean trunk and build about it in such manner that the top of the rooted timber rises a couple feet above your bedroom floor. The trunk need not be manifest in the lower part of the house, but I should prefer to have it so; I am a tree worshipper; it should be as the visible presence of a household god. And how could one more nobly symbolize the sacredness of Home? There can be no home without the sense of permanence, and without home there is no civilization -- as England will discover when the greater part of her population have become flat-inhabiting nomads. In some ideal commonwealth, one can imagine the Odyssean bed a normal institution, every head of a household, cottager or lord (for the commonwealth must have its lords, go to!), lying down to rest, as did his fathers, in the Chamber of the Tree. This, one fancies, were a somewhat more fitting nuptial chamber than the chance bedroom of a hotel. Odysseus building his home is man performing a supreme act of piety; through all the ages that picture must retain its profound significance....”

George Gissing.

This may be a good time to bring up something that’s been bothering me while reading this book. Both Ryecroft and Gissing were family men, though not particularly successful ones, yet there is no sign of that in anything he’s written to date. Henry is a widower with a daughter married off somewhere. Gissing’s marital life was anything but happy. Had he built the house described above for his first wife, he likely would have burned it down later. So where does this Pollyanna attitude toward the “sacredness of Home” come from? And why does he not write a single word about his own domestic past?

“Gissing's academic career ended in disgrace when he fell in love with a young orphan prostitute, Marianne Helen Harrison, known as Nell [of course!]. He gave her money in an attempt to keep her off the streets and when funds ran short he stole from his fellow students...” “After returning to England [from America], Gissing settled in London with Nell, writing fiction and working as a private tutor. He failed to get his first novel published and privately printed his next work, Workers in the Dawn, at his own expense as no publisher would accept it. The marriage at the centre of this novel was based on experience of his relationship with Nell, whom he married on 27 October 1879...” “Before his next novel, The Unclassed was published in 1884, Gissing and his wife had separated, although he continued to support her financially until her alcohol-related death in 1888...” “On 25 February 1891, he married another working-class woman, Edith Alice Underwood. They settled in Exeter, but moved to Brixton in June 1893 and Epsom in 1894. They had two children, Walter Leonard (1891–1916) and Alfred Charles Gissing (1896–1975), but the marriage was not successful. Edith did not understand his work and was prone to fits of temper and violence. In April 1896, Walter was sent to stay with Gissing's sisters in Wakefield, to prevent him being a victim of Edith's violence. As well as his marital difficulties, Gissing developed health problems in the 1890s. The couple separated in 1897; in 1902, Edith was certified insane and was confined to an asylum. At this time he met and befriended Clara Collet who was probably in love with him, although it is unclear whether he reciprocated. They remained friends for the rest of his life and after his death she helped to support Edith and the children.”

-Wiki

You’d think there would have been an anecdote or two from all that, he could have borrowed for this book, but perhaps he didn’t want to start down that road. Henry comes off here as the sort of confirmed bachelor that I am in fact. As a self professed “tree worshipper,” I wonder if he is aware that the North of England Industrial Revolution he so disliked saved the remaining forests of Britain? Back when wood was the primary building material for structures and ships, and the source of charcoal, the forests were quickly disappearing. Coal and iron helped save the forests just as kerosene helped save the sperm whales.

Bars and parents.

It has been pouring rain today, since we are in a drought this is a good thing. To get out of the house, without straying too far in the storm, I have come to the Cafe Bastille for dinner. This place is a favorite of mine for the delicious chocolate mouse (something I never order anywhere else) and a Cabernet Sauvignon I'm quite fond of, but on a stormy night like this I particularly like it for the venue, or room or space. This is not the outdoor seating in a crowded alley, that I enjoy at other seasons. Or the indoor seating that is an acceptable alternative on rainy afternoons. No, I'm talking about the basement, decorated to suggest (vaguely) the Paris subway. To dash down the rain swept alley and then descend into this crowded and festive Gallic space is to strip away the veil that separates Paris from California. You think I exaggerate, but I've often come here with French expatriates and I assure you this is a magical space not only consonant but congruent with Paris. Until you climb the stairs to the street, you may as well be in -- or under -- the City of Lights.

Tonight I beg and plead with the staff and they make me my favorite dish, even though it isn't currently on the menu. This is a pasta dish but not one you would find in any Italian restaurant. The heavenly sauce is buttery and herbal. The pasta soaks up this light and delicious broth... and if there is any sauce left over I use the last of the bread to capture every last drop.

The Cafe Bastille is not a bar but, especially the crowded downstairs room, is like a bar in that you are all but forced to interact with the people sitting near you. I was thinking about bars today which led to my thinking about my father which led to my realizing that not only does Ryecroft not talk about pubs or his immediate family (wife and daughter) he says almost nothing about his parents either. All we know about his father is that he had a good library.

For that matter, I wasn’t that close with my father, but that’s not to say he didn’t influence (positively or negatively) who I am now. This came up because, on the rare occasions I go into a bar, I’m always surprised what social places they are. My dad always had a bar in the neighborhood that was his home away from home, but then he was a very social guy... and a drinker. When I drove a taxi during college, we did a lot of business at bars but all I had to do was walk in the door and yell “Taxi!” I never spent any time there as a customer. I think of bars as simply a place to watch a game or have a drink.

It’s funny to realize that I never really knew my dad where he was probably most at home... where he was most himself. I didn’t even know, until after he was dead, that he had once been part owner of a bar when I was very young. Who knew my dad had layers? And after decades of not having much to talk to each other about, I now have a list of questions I would like to ask him -- probably while having drinks at a bar. Of course the thought of that imaginary family event brings with it the image of my mother, her feelings hurt, saying, “You two go on and have fun. I’ll just stay home by myself and sulk.”

Next: Winter XVI. Art is long....

Winter XIV. Lancashire + Information presentation

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter XIV. English comfort

[Cont. from previous section]

If the ingenious foreigner found himself in some village of manufacturing Lancashire, he would be otherwise impressed. Here something of the power of England might be revealed to him, but of England’s worth, little enough. Hard ugliness would everywhere assail his eyes; the visages and voices of the people would seem to him thoroughly akin to their surroundings. Scarcely could one find, in any civilized nation, a more notable contrast than that between these two English villages and their inhabitants.

Yet Lancashire is English, and there among the mill chimneys, in the hideous little street, folk are living whose domestic thoughts claim undeniable kindred with those of the villagers of the kinder south... More than a hundred years ago, power passed from the south of England to the north. The vigorous race on the other side of Trent [?] only found its opportunity when the age of machinery began; its civilization, long delayed, differs in obvious respects from that of older England. In Sussex or in Somerset, however dull and clownish the typical inhabitant, he plainly belongs to an ancient order of things, represents an immemorial subordination. The rude man of the north is -- by contrast -- but just emerged from barbarism, and under any circumstances would show less smooth a front. By great misfortune, he has fallen under the harshest lordship the modern world has known -- that of scientific industrialism, and all his vigorous qualities are subdued to a scheme of life based upon the harsh, the ugly, the sordid. His racial heritage, of course, marks him to the eye; even as ploughman or shepherd, he differs notably from him of the same calling in the weald or on the downs... he seems even yet stamped with the half-savagery of his folk as they were a century and a half ago... This fair broad land of the lovely villages signifies little save to the antiquary, the poet, the painter. Vainly, indeed, should I show its beauty and its peace to the observant foreigner; he would but smile, and, with a glance at the traction-engine just coming along the road, indicate the direction of his thoughts.

Alpha.

A “traction engine” was the precursor of today’s truck or lorry. I continue to be confounded by the regionalism of Britain. From Parade’s End I learned how the Yorkshiremen viewed the people from the south of England, and I guess here we see the obverse of that coin. Is there really such a racial difference though? You’d think he was talking about the Welch or the Scots or the Irish. I visited New England for the first time one summer when I was still in college. I camped near North Truro on Cape Cod and took a ferry to Nantucket. What amused me was the regional pecking order. People on the Cape spoke disparagingly of residents living on the west side of the canal, in Massachusetts proper. The natives of Nantucket held an even lower regard for the residents of the Cape... who were really just mainlanders, and dismissed the people on Martha’s Vineyard since “you can actually see the land from there.” I think the speaker might have spat after having said that. I sometimes wonder if people who propose global order and serenity -- whether the United Nations, the International, or the City of God -- have spent any time at all talking to actual people.

Styles of information presentation.

People have been making charts of the movement of stock and commodity prices (over time) for a long time. In the U.S., Charles Dow was an early figure in this study which today is known as Technical Analysis or TA. The standard American way of indicating price information on a chart for a long time was the bar.

This simple device gives you, at a glance, all the information you need about the change of price over some interval of time (an hour, a day, a week, a month). For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to stick to daily charts, so the left tick indicates the price at the opening of the market. The right tick indicates the closing price. While the top of the bar gives you the high of the day and the bottom reveals the low of the day.

This works just fine, and some people continue to use these bars today. But more people, I believe, have adopted or switched to the Japanese “candlestick” method of displaying this information:

According to Steve Nison, candlestick charting first appeared sometime after 1850 [in Japan]. Much of the credit for candlestick development and charting goes to a legendary rice trader named Homma from the town of Sakata. It is likely that his original ideas were modified and refined over many years of trading eventually resulting in the system of candlestick charting that we use today.”

-Source

Candlesticks are a bit harder to explain, there are a few more rules, but viewing candlesticks is much more interesting and, at least in theory, revealing.

The two dimensional part of the candlestick is termed the “body” while the line above or below is termed the “shadow.” The body is filled with a color if the close was below the open; while if the close is above the open the body is left un-pigmented. The shadows, if they exist, indicate a high above the body or a low below the body. The Japanese have gone much further and come up with names for a wide variety of candlesticks, and even sequences of candlesticks, that they believed were revealing of market trends or, even more important, trend changes. Here is a chart example. In these cases, the named candlestick is seen as signaling a trend change: First a bullish change and then a bearish change:

I believe candlestick charts are helpfully visual in the same way that a graphical user interface (GUI) on a computer is helpful. Today there are still a few die-hard nerds who believe Microsoft’s MSDOS command line interface ...

...was superior to the Macintosh OS or Windows... and they are not wrong -- from their point of view. The simplicity of a non-graphical user interface is a real value: Much simpler code and quicker performance. Yet how many people today would be using laptops, tablets, and smartphones with a command line interface? Not me. 

The way, even the style, with which information is presented is often as valuable as the content of that information. This is also, I think, why Nietzsche has inspired (for better or worse) generations of readers while people like Kant and Foucault are known to much more limited and specialized audiences. Reading literature, especially the Classics, in the vernacular rather than in Greek and Latin is yet another instance of something similar -- I’m certain Ryecroft derived more from reading Horace in Latin than I did from reading him in an English translation. But I’m also certain that I, and many other people, would never have been exposed to him at all if he was only available in Latin.

Next: Winter XV. Treehouse.

Winter XIII. English comfort

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter XII. Comfort in the roaring dark

If some stranger from abroad asked me to point out to him the most noteworthy things in England, I should first of all consider his intellect. Were he a man of everyday level, I might indicate for his wonder and admiration Greater London, the Black Country, South Lancashire, and other features of our civilization which, despite eager rivalry, still maintain our modern pre-eminence in the creation of ugliness. If, on the other hand, he seemed a man of brains, it would be my pleasure to take him to one of those old villages, in the midlands or the west, which lie at some distance from a railway station, and in aspect are still untouched by the baser tendencies of the time, Here, I would tell my traveller, he saw something which England alone can show. The simple beauty of the architecture, its perfect adaptation to the natural surroundings, the neatness of everything though without formality, the general cleanness and good repair, the grace of cottage gardens, that tranquility and security which makes a music in the mind of him who gazes -- these are what a man must see and feel if he would appreciate the worth and the power of England...

The Englishman’s need of “comfort” is one of his best characteristics; the possibility that he may change in this respect, and become indifferent to this old ideal of physical and mental ease, is the gravest danger manifest in our day. For “comfort,” mind you, does not concern the body alone; the beauty and orderliness of an Englishman’s home derive their value, nay, their very existence, from the spirit which directs his whole life. Walk from the village to the noble’s mansion. It, too, is perfect of its kind; it has the dignity of age, its walls are beautiful, the gardens, the park about it are such as can be found only in England, lovely beyond compare; and all this represents the same moral characteristics as the English cottage, but with greater activities and responsibilities. If the noble grow tired of his mansion, and, letting it to some crude owner of millions, go to live in hotels and hired villas; if the cottager sicken of his village roof, and transport himself to the sixth floor of a “block” in Shoreditch; one sees but too well that the one and the other have lost the old English sense of comfort, and, in losing it, have suffered degradation alike as men and as citizens. It is not a question of exchanging one form of comfort for another; the instinct which made an Englishman has in these cases perished. Perhaps it is perishing from among us altogether, killed by new social and political conditions, one who looks at villages of the new type, at the working-class quarters of towns, at the rising of “flats” among the dwellings of the wealthy, has little choice but to think so. There may soon come a day when, though the word “comfort” continues to be used in many languages, the thing it signifies will be discoverable nowhere at all.

Alpha.

One problem with having read so much military writing is that it is hard to remember just where you picked up a certain idea or story. In some account of a British war, after The Great War, and I’m almost certain this was non-fiction, there was an officer paired with -- as always in these cases -- an enlisted man who saw to the officer's dietary needs. This particular assistant had a knack for producing a cup of hot tea in the most unlikely circumstances. Weather, lack of supplies, enemy fire, seemed to have no effect on his ability to manifest boiling hot tea at a moment’s notice. I think Ryecroft would have approved this sign of English comfort under trying circumstances. But Ryecroft -- or, in this case, let’s just say Gissing -- seems to be getting at something else here, and I’m not entirely sure what it is. Ryecroft never mentions the Roman paragon Marcus Furius Camillus, but I rather think Gissing has in mind here the kind of rural/agricultural virtues aristocratic England shared with early Republican Rome. In Plutarch, and also Livy, Camillus is the symbol of this agrarian virtue. I hesitate to suggest Lord Redesdale (David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale) -- fictionalized as Uncle Matthew, Lord Alconleigh, in Nancy Mitford’s novels -- as the English equivalent of Camillus, but he does display many of the virtues, and also the dislike of living “in town,” that Ryecroft mentions above. And I'm sure Camillus would have been pleased to see, and hear the story of, the entrenching tool (though a quick search informs me that weapon actually belonged to Sir Iain Colquhoun, 7th Baronet -- a Scots "Hon" no less). It would actually be fascinating to quiz the author on this point, as the Mitford home seems not to have been particularly “comfortable” in the conventional sense of that term, and yet I would bet Gissing would have approved of it over the alternative of dwelling in a comparatively deluxe flat “in town.”

Next: Winter XIV. Lancashire.

Winter XII. Comfort in the roaring dark

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter XI. The decline of English butter

The good S----- writes me a kindly letter. He is troubled by the thought of my loneliness. That I should choose to live in such a place as this through the summer, he can understand; but surely I should do better to come to town for the winter? How on earth do I spend the dark days and the long evenings?

I chuckle over the good S----’s sympathy. Dark days are few in happy Devon, and such as befall have never brought me a moment’s tedium. The long, wild winter of the north would try my spirits; but here, the season that follows autumn is merely one of rest, Nature’s annual slumber. And I share in the restful influence. Often enough I pass an hour in mere drowsing by the fireside; frequently I let my book drop, satisfied to muse. But more often than not the winter day is blest with sunshine -- the soft beam which is Nature’s smile in dreaming. I go forth and wander far. It pleases me to note changes of landscape when the leaves have fallen; I see streams and ponds which during summer were hidden; my favorite lanes have an unfamiliar aspect, and I become better acquainted with them. Then, there is a rare beauty in the structure of trees ungarmented; and if perchance snow or frost have silvered their tracery against the sober sky, it becomes a marvel which never tires...

In the middle years of my life -- those years that were the worst of all -- I used to dread the sound of a winter storm which woke me in the night... The wind’s wail seemed to me the voice of a world in anguish; rain was the weeping of the feeble and the oppressed. But nowadays I can lie and listen to a night-storm with no intolerable thoughts; at worst, I fall into a compassionate sadness as I remember those I loved and whom I shall see no more. For myself, there is even comfort in the roaring dark; for I feel the strength of the good walls about me, and my safety from squalid peril such as pursued me through all my labouring life. “Blow, blow, thou winter wind!” Thou canst not blow away the modest wealth which makes my security. Nor can any “rain upon the roof” put my soul to question; for life has given me all I ever asked -- infinitely more than I ever hoped -- and in no corner of my mind does there lurk a coward fear of death.

Alpha.

For the most part, I’m with Ryecroft here. I’ve always loved a good storm -- summer or winter -- and being bored by solitude has never been one of my fears. It has struck me, however, that prior to the days of TV, radio, and even recorded music, many people went to considerable trouble to be amused. Reading Lost Time, the last time, I was struck by the degree to which the various salons Marcel attended (or describes) were motivated, even more than by a desire for status, by an overwhelming need to escape boredom. I have known enough people who could not stand a moment of conversational silence -- or even an hour, much less an evening, of their own company -- to appreciate that not everyone is like me in craving undisturbed time to myself. I’m not, however, quite as sanguine about my “safety from peril.” I am as secure as possible, and the modesty of my requirements accentuates this security, but we are all vulnerable. An earthquake could bring down my building or even my entire neighborhood. A plane could crash down on everything I own, or a simple fire could as easily turn it all to ash and smoke. Disease or injury could turn my world upside down in a day or an hour. Security is an illusion. And this is all the more true for people, unlike myself and the written Henry Ryecroft, with actual families -- which are always dangerously exposed hostages to fate. But this is not a criticism of George Gissing. Henry Ryecroft’s total security is another important element of the divine fantasy Gissing has crafted of a bucolic, literary retirement. To have realistic concerns about such things would be as inappropriate here as concerns about Erectile Disfunction would be in a pornographic novel. In real life, however, I try to do everything I can to secure my health and my comfort in life. But I believe it is even more important to come to terms with the idea that ultimately we have no control over any of this. The best we can hope for is that we not embarrass ourselves as the thing plays out how it will. As for death, I don’t fear it either... when I’m well and the sun is out. At other times I’m not so confident. I’m curious about the other side -- it is the great unknown, the “undiscovered country” -- and I think I’m not going to mind being dead (whatever that turns out to mean), but I can’t say I’m looking forward to dying.

For several years I lived on the 29th floor of a commercial-residential tower. I was making more money than normal and could afford the highest rent I would ever pay. Living there was a mixed bag of convenience and inconvenience, amenities and too thin party walls. What I most enjoyed there were winter storms when I was safe and warm in my snug little aerie while rain lashed the streets far below. I'm sad to say I understood all to well the words of Lady Montdore in Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate, “ 'I love being so dry in here [they are in her chauffeured car],’ as Lady Montdore put it, 'and seeing all those poor people so wet.’ ”

Brevity, next to Godliness.

Given the recent Foucault ordeal, I’m guessing the reader will not mind a short post or two. Think of it as a seasonal thing. The blog is semi-hibernating, resting prior to the next period of renewal and rebirth. And the alternative is a bunch more about Faust.

Next: Winter XIII. English comfort.

Winter XI. The decline of English butter + Value added

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter X. The English potato

It angers me to pass a grocer’s shop, and see in the window a display of foreign butter. This is the kind of thing that makes one gloom over the prospects of England. The deterioration of English butter is one of the worst signs of the moral state of our people. Naturally, this article of food would at once betray a decline in the virtues of its maker... Begin to save your labour, to aim at dishonest profits, to feel disgust or contempt for your work -- and the churn declares every one of these vices. They must be very prevalent, for it is getting to be a rare thing to eat English butter which is even tolerable. What! England dependent for dairy-produce upon France, Denmark, America?...

...London is the antithesis of the domestic ideal; a social reformer would not even glance in that direction, but would turn all his zeal upon small towns and country districts, where blight may perhaps be arrested, and whence, some day, a reconstituted national life may act upon the great centre of corruption... Little girls should be taught cooking and baking more assiduously than they are taught to read... Bread, again; we are getting used to bread of poor quality, and ill-made, but the English loaf at its best -- such as you were once sure of getting in every village -- is the faultless form of the staff of life. Think of the glorious revolution that could be wrought in our troubled England if it could be ordained that no maid, of whatever rank, might become a wife unless she had proved her ability to make and bake a perfect loaf of bread.

Alpha.

It’s interesting that this section may be the most dated in the whole book so far. Of course in the 1950s and 1960s, in the U.S., someone might similarly have proposed that all young men prove they could perfectly grill a steak and burgers on a barbecue before they could become a groom. I’m very fond of good bread, and I’ve even baked a few decent loaves myself, but I think he may be exaggerating bread’s ability to restore England. I also rather suspect that what would be viewed as a perfect loaf (or a perfectly prepared potato for that matter) would have varied, if not from county to county, at least from region to region within England at this time. I am most surprised about the butter crisis he writes about. For one thing, I didn’t know that butter traveled this well at the turn of the century. I would have assumed that butter was mostly produced within a reasonable distance (cart or train distance, not ship distance) of the point where it was consumed. Apparently not. I almost never keep butter at home and rarely use it when I’m out. I will use some if it’s particularly good, but mostly I order my toast dry and avoid the calories. I’m more likely to use olive oil. I suppose in Italy or France there are towns where the aging generation bemoans the relative popularity of either olive oil or butter, depending on their upbringing. If I had to choose a side, I would go with olive oil, but I would also assist the butter Resistance supplying that essential ingredient to German bakeries -- even if I don’t actually partake in such delights from year to year. Just knowing that there are delicious butterkuchen (zuckerkuchen) out there somewhere, makes the world a better place.

Value added.

In the 1950s and 1960s a tremendous amount of wealth was created in the U.S. by the Interstate Highway System. A quick Google search reveals this gem of a quote,

We were not a wealthy Nation when we began improving our highways... but the roads themselves helped us create a new wealth, in business and industry and land values... So it was not our wealth that made our highways possible. Rather, it was our highways that made our wealth possible.

Thomas H. MacDonald

Chief, U.S. Bureau of Public Roads

Source

While the Interstates were the main engine of wealth creation, there were developers who imagined ways to also add value to urban real estate. In Minneapolis and St Paul, and even in Duluth, skyway systems were created, starting in 1962, to link buildings and blocks downtown. The obvious reason for the skyways was to permit people to walk from block to block without exposure to the winter cold and snow. But the other advantage was that it increased the value of the second floor of all these buildings due to the foot traffic in the skyways. Shops and restaurants opening onto a skyway had advantages, at least in the winter, over similar retail establishments facing the freezing sidewalks.

The next step after skyways can best be seen in Peachtree Center in Atlanta from the late 1960s and Embarcadero Center in San Francisco from the early 1970s, both by John C. Portman. Here, multiple square block developments were crafted so as to pull people up off the streets to retail areas on the second and third floors linked, block to block, by pedestrian bridges. Both “Centers” were criticized for damaging the health of the street and sidewalks by emphasizing the interior and above street levels. As sensitive as I am to the health of streets, I’ve never quite understood this objection, as the sidewalk edges of Embarcadero Center, at least, continue to actively engage the street while the increased density of retail options (not to mention the massive commercial spaces in the towers above) pull people toward this “Center.” It is true, however, that many people drive in, park, consume or work within the center, and finally drive away again without ever hitting a sidewalk.

I’m only writing about this now because I had some time to kill today, before seeing a movie at the theater in Embarcadero Center, and walked the length of both the second and third floors. Two things struck me: This place was designed prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act -- you cannot walk from block to block without going up and down steps, I can’t tell if it was done to save money or to add visual interest, but there are a ridiculous number of steps.

Secondly, even in the midst of a booming economy, the third floor is a ghost town of vacant spaces. Most of the big restaurants up there have closed and they have not been replaced. My guess is that this is because it is hard to pull enough foot traffic up three floors, while the landlord still wants rents similar to street level or maybe the second floor. Greed usually plays a part in these things.

Of the four blocks at the core of the Center, only the block where the third floor is anchored by the movie theater looks healthy. Here there are two apparently thriving restaurants (including the one I frequent) feeding on the crowds flowing to and from the theater. This is the way the whole place is supposed to work.

In 1999 Sony open The Metreon entertainment complex near the local convention center. It was flashy and bold and astonishingly ill conceived. It was a single building covering less than half of a (really big) block. There was no commercial tower above (though on some days there was a torrent of convention goers walking past), there was no parking on site (though there is a huge garage across the street, but it serves the whole, very busy, area). Worst of all, The Metreon completely ignored the busy streets and sidewalks around it. There were a few common entrances, but mostly the building addressed the sidewalk with blank walls. Even where there were windows they showed you stores you could not enter directly. Almost all the opening day tenants -- even Sony itself -- have fled. In 2011 the building was mostly shut down and rebuilt to finally address the sidewalk and to create more convivial internal spaces. The second floor is now a Target store -- a destination of sorts. The third floor remains a huge cineplex, the only consistently successful operation, and now the crowds flowing to and from the theater are more effectively funneled past restaurant and retail options. They’ve pretty much given up on the fourth floor which is only used for special events like large banquets and parties and convention related gatherings. The new businesses colonizing the previously sterile exterior edges are still too new for me to know if they will survive, but they seem to be attracting people from the busy sidewalks. At least they have a shot now.

If there’s a moral to this, it’s that you can add value to above street (or even below street) floors, but you have to be smart about it. Put in an Interstate with an exit and the wealth creating deed is done.

Next: Winter XII. Comfort in the roaring dark.

Winter X.The English potato + Excellence

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter IX. Lentils. alas!

Talking of vegetables, can the inhabited globe offer anything to vie with the English potato justly steamed? I do not say that it is always -- or often -- to be seen on our tables, for the steaming of a potato is one of the great achievements of culinary art; but, when it is set before you, how flesh and spirit exult! A modest palate will find more than simple comfort in your boiled potato of every day, as served in the decent household. New or old, it is beyond challenge delectable. Try to think that civilized nations exist to whom this food is unknown -- nay, who speak of it, on hearsay, with contempt! Such critics, little as they suspect it, never ate a potato in their lives....

Alpha.

Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice: “And what excellent boiled potatoes. It's been many years since I had such an exemplary vegetable...” Gissing is probably correct in thinking I’ve never tasted the exemplary potatoes, steamed or boiled, that he’s talking about. I’ve had quite lovely mashed or home fried (roasted) potatoes, and when traveling in Scotland I all but lived on indifferent baked potatoes, with a variety of toppings, from the Spudulike chain. I tend to think of potatoes as a base you need to add tastier things to: onions, garlic, mushrooms, avocado.

Again, I would recommend rereading the above, but this time in the voice of William Shatner.

In praise of excellence.

I considered writing about organic, locally raised produce... or possibly tofu, but the truth is, aside from heirloom tomatoes, I don't participate in the locavore economy as much as I should. Instead I'm going to praise a true American icon, the greasy spoon diner.

An eating establishment that features pig iconography is an odd refuge for a determined vegetarian, yet this place has been my favorite breakfast place for many years now. I’ve had four different “favorite” dishes in the years I’ve been coming here regularly. My current favorite is the Vegan Special, with spinach, tomato, mushroom, tofu, and, most importantly, garlic. It is served with the house special hash browns (which I'm pretty sure are not vegan). But, if I'm honest, while the food is good, that is not why I keep coming back.

This place is too small and crowded to have (or need) any decor. When you make it out of the line on the sidewalk, you just want a place to sit and a menu. I also want a seat at the counter so I can watch the cooking which all takes place on a grill and stove just behind the counter. It's a tight space for two cooks, waitresses, and dish washer/prep people to maneuver in, but they make it work. Rarely do I get my food quicker anywhere else.

What I really love is to watch the professionalism of the regular waitresses. The place is always packed, with a line out on the sidewalk, and there are two waitresses and a third woman who cleans tables, seats people, and does everything else that needs doing. When I first started coming, always on weekends, there were always the same three women and they really had it down. The job of keeping the patrons in order often fell to the short tempered waitress who wasn’t afraid of tell a customer what was what. On at least one occasion I covered her tip when an outraged asshole stiffed her. Now, I rarely catch both those waitresses working the same day, but they still make it work somehow.

And this train of thought got me thinking about how I’m attracted to people who do their work well (whatever that work is). One of the reasons I’m a bad sports fan is that what I enjoy watching is people performing well -- regardless of which team they are playing for. This is why I preferred the 2010 and 2012 Giants championship teams to this years team. In those earlier World Series, the whole team performed superbly and dominated the opponents. This year, it mostly came down to one exceptional player -- which is also impressive, but not at all the same thing. The only time I paid attention to professional American football was during the years in the late 1980s when the local 49ers were exceptional. It took me several seasons to notice that they weren't just wining games, that they had a remarkable organization with all the right people in all the right positions. It was like watching the Spartans or Alexander's Macedonian army, or Caesar's Legions at Pharsalus, or the CSA Corps commanded by General Jackson -- only no one was actually getting killed or maimed.

In sports or in war, people are always quick to point out the advantages the winners enjoyed. Yet often there are people (commanders or nations or coaches or owners) who squander what should have been similar advantages. What is striking to me about the Pacific War, is the way the U.S. Navy was able to thwart the advance of the Imperial Japanese Navy, fight them to a standstill in and around the Solomons and New Guinea, while they were still at a disadvantage in all the material ways (planes, ships, weapons) that would later became their advantages. If war was a rational business, if the Japanese actually paid attention to their own propaganda about being superior, man for man, to their decadent Western foes; then the Japanese would have quit the war after being unable to defeat the Americans in 1942 -- when most of the factors were in Japan's favor.

Whether in a restaurant or on a sports team or in an army, it always comes down to the performance of actual people. They have to know their jobs; have an aptitude for those jobs; and execute well.

Next: Winter XI. The decline of English butter.