RIP Neil Armstrong - Aug. 5, 1930 – Aug. 25, 2012

Things like the event of landing a man on the moon did not impress me. I would not have bothered to read the big-headlined story in The Detroit Free Press, which I read daily in those days. Shuttles? Technical. Boring. I was not political at the time except in expressing as much disgust as I could for Richard Nixon (who now seems so sane and decent compared to the leaders of today's Republican party) and laughing at the faux Judy Agnew diary published monthly in The Realist magazine, which made the person who told a New York Times reporter that she had “no use” for hippies, “although I don’t know any, really” seem stupider than she actually was.

Today the first man to walk on the moon was buried. President Obama ordered that flags at national sites be lowered to half-staff in Neil Armstrong's honor. I was pleased to do so; I'd come to have immense respect for the man from Wapokoneta, Ohio, who'd refused to exchange his fame and glory for profit or for an enlarged ego; he did not exploit the honor he'd been granted; he was perfectly accomplished at the wonderful trait of modesty. 

Forty Men Dead At Sea

For John, with thanks for the visit; when tour-guiding I get to be a tourist too.

This memorial, in the meditation garden at St. Mary of the Harbor Episcopal Church in Provincetown, is dedicated to the forty men who lost their lives when the Submarine S-4 was accidentally rammed by the Coast Guard Destroyer Paulding on Dec. 17, 1927. The bronze plaque attached to the cross lists the names of the lost men. A sealing ring from the conning (observation) tower of Submarine S-4 encircles the base of the cross.

Rescue efforts were undertaken. Life boats were lowered in case any men surfaced, but nothing rose from the sea's depths except small amounts of oil and air bubbles.  Eventually divers discovered that six men, still alive, were trapped in a torpedo room at the ship's front. Messages between the trapped seamen and the divers were exchanged, using the Morse Code, by tapping on the hull. The divers were ordered to attach oxygen hoses but a storm rose before this could be accomplished. The sea heaved mightily. Gale-force winds whipped hither and thither. The temperature fell to a point below freezing. The rescue operations were stymied for ten days by the severe weather. It was now too late. A second-from-last message was tapped on the hull from inside the stricken submarine: "Is there any hope?" I've read various accounts of the tragedy but can find no record of that message being responded to by the divers. And, at last, a somber final message from the trapped men: "We understand."

My nephew John and I sit on a bench near the memorial. To our left is a koi pond. Any which way one turns there are lovely beds of flowers and shrubbery and ornamental grasses; and to the south, across the greensward, a narrow view of the bay, the water looking vaguely blue in the late-afternoon sun. A row of grape vines along the east wall of the church rise twistingly (seemingly tortured with twist) to the eaves.

You can, as John and I eventually did, rise from the bench, lift the latch of the garden's gate, and instantly find yourself amongst the hustle and bustle of Commercial Street, in an atmosphere of carnival, tourists traipsing east, tourists traipsing west. You can walk to a great place called Karoo Kafe and ponder the South African-themed menu. One of you may eat a mildly-curried meatloaf, and the other of you may have salmon patties and, because the patties taste so like hers, you may remember your mother.

You will have left the garden, but you will not forget.

Dinner

At the park we have anywhere from six to a dozen young Fire Techs; they often are deployed -- usually somewhere out west -- to fight those huge fires you see on the TV news. I asked one of their leaders today what they ate when out in the wilderness.  "MRE's," he said -- meals ready to eat. "Are they good?" I asked. "I'll bring you one and you can decide for yourself."

They were called "C-Rations" when I was in the Army.  They were not bad -- something Spam-like was my favorite -- but barely enough to sustain you until the next meal..  I'll see how I do with my Menu 9 Beef stew, which I can't eat tonight because Jack and Jane, whose cats I feed when they're away, brought me a foot-long ham sub from a great deli in Saratoga Springs, New York, and I need to eat it in all its glorious freshness.

RIP: Hermann Hesse: July 2, 1877 - Aug. 9, 1962

The below is pasted from a blog I follow called "Dead Writers Club." I won't ever have to think, geez, I don't have anything new worth reading until I've read every single word that Hesse wrote. His The Glass Bead Game (sometimes published under the title Magister Ludi -- Latin for "master of the game") is perhaps the most spiritually uplifting novel I've ever read; it elevated me as I read it. He's one of the greatest of the greats, one of the guys whom I want to be my friend in the next life.

Happy Deathday, Mr. Hesse!

On this day in 1962, German author, Hermann Hesse, died of a Cerebral Hemorrhage. He died in Switzerland at the age of 85.
                           
Hesse is probably best remembered for his novel, Siddhartha, published in 1922. If you have not read it, we’ll not spoil the experience for you here, but we will say that Hesse’s crafting of Siddhartha’s journey is delightfully revealing of both the author, the subject and… the reader. Hmm… not sure if that last bit made sense… well… read the novel and you’ll see what we mean!

Our favorite work by Hesse is his 1919 novel, entitled Demian, which he wrote after his son had suffered traumatic illness, his wife had experienced a nervous breakdown, and his father had just died. Keep in mind, also, that this book was written right after the United States had declared war on Germany! To say this book is “intense” and loaded with societal angst and uncertainty, is a gross understatement.

Hesse received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. Some of his other notable works include: Narcissus and Goldmund (1930), Gertrude (1910), The Journey to the East (1932), The Glass Bead Game (1943), and Steppenwolf (1927). For more biographical information on this fascinating man, please check out this link at nobelprize.org.

Today, draw upon your own personal tragedies to find the “understanding” Hesse found in Siddhartha or the great realization of self that Emil found in Demian. Ask yourself if the totality of your experiences allows you to attain understanding in the same way. Seek the truth as you meander through the dark corridors of your memories.

Write on in peace, Mr. Hesse!

RIP: Gore Vidal - Oct. 3, 1925 - July 31, 2012

Gore Vidal

Novelist, playwright, memoirist, screenwriter, and -- in his greatest role in my humble opinion -- essayist on politics and culture.  Of the many and various books he wrote, the one that delighted me the most was Two Sisters: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir, published in 1970; it was a deliciously vicious portrait ... and I do mean vicious ... of the notable (and notably dishonest) diarist, Anais Nin, who, to Vidal's great displeasure, claimed she had had an affair with him.

Gore himself claimed to have had an affair with the actress Diana Lynn, and was engaged to Joanne Woodward before she married Paul Newman, but the longest love of his life was with a man named Howard Auster, a photographer; they met in 1950; Auster died in 2003.  Gore said the secret to the success of their relationship was that they never had sex with one another, but only with others.  "It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part, and impossible, I have observed, when it does," Gore said.

***

Some other samples of Gore's wit and word-mastery:


"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."

"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."

"Envy is the central fact of American life."

"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little."

"The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since."

"Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60"

"Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent."

"The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return"

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."

"The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes."

"The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so."

"Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine."

"We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic."

"As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days."

"Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself."

"Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die."

"There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices."

"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise."

***

Though he died just yesterday, I've already, on a wintry day in 2001, visited and photographed his and Auster's gravestone in Washington DC's Rock Creek Cemetery. (I'd gone to the cemetery to see the St. Gaudens sculpture of Henry Adams' wife, and just happened to notice, nearby, the Vidal/Auster pre-planning.)