A Profound Love Of Nature (Isle of Typhoeus)

       

Olive Tree, Ischia

         Now, if my friend had come to Ischia instead of poisoning himself with fusel oil sold as whisky by honest colonial traders, he might have drunk as much as he pleased and been all the better for it.  For wine is the water of Ischia, and as a vino da pasto it is surpassed by none other south of Rome.  Indeed, it is drunk all over Europe (under other names) and a pretty sight it is to see the many-shaped craft from foreign ports jostling each other in the little circular harbour, one of the few pleasing mementos of Bourbon misrule.  The Austrian, battling with his Paprikahendl, or the Frenchman ogling his omelette and his yard of bread, little dream how much Ischia has contributed to their Gumboldskirchner or vin ordinaire.  Try it therefore through every degree of latitude on the island, from the golden torrents of thousand-vatted Forio up to the pale primrose-hued ichor, a drink for gods, that oozes from the dwarfed mountain grapes.  Try also the red kinds.

The waters of Ischia

        Try them all, over and over again.  Such at least was the advice of a Flemish gentleman whom I met in bygone years in Casamicciola.  Like most of his countrymen, Mynheer had little chiaroscuro in his composition; he was prone to call a spade a spade; but his ‘rational view of life’, as he preferred to call it, was transfigured and irradiated by a profound love of nature. Where there is no landscape, he used to say, there I drink without pleasure.  ‘Landscape refines.  Only beasts drink indoors.’ Every morning, he went in search of new farmhouses in which to drink during the afternoon, and late into the evening.  Every night, with tremendous din, he was carried to bed.  He never apologized for this disturbance; it was his yearly holiday, he explained.  He must have possessed an enviable digestion, for he was up with the lark and I used to hear him at his toilette, singing strange ditties of Meuse or Scheldt.  Breakfast over, he would sally forth on his daily quest, thirsty and sentimental as ever.  One day, I remember, he discovered a farmhouse more seductive than all the rest—‘with a view over Vesuvius and the coastline, a view, I assure you of entrancing loveliness!’  That evening he never came home at all…….

Excerpt from Isle Of Typhoeus (1909)  -- Norman Douglas

Zeus hurling his lightning at Typhoeus, Chalcidian black-figured hydra, ca. 550 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich

Reading Norman Douglas's Isle Of Typhoeus, written when Douglas was already 41, midway between his first book Unprofessional Tales (1901) and his most famous novel South Wind (1917), both calms me down and lifts me up, two things I find I need very much these days.  

        I learn so much so enjoyably and easily from Douglas that I don't even mind when the gaping holes in my education are revealed in super-high relief (or, as I suppose I should say, high-definition void).  I'd like to think there's still time to rectify (or at least ameliorate) the situation and definitely time to steer (I would like to say, "continue to steer") Jane on the right course in her own studies. 

        "The Frenchman ogling his omelette and his yard of bread". That's really great, I think, and so is all the rest, which immediately takes up permanent residence in memory and reference frame.

         I wasn't sure at first why Ischia was referred to as the Isle Of Typhoeus in Douglas's title, but if you are interested, you can find a great deal of information about the terrible Typhoeus, father both to Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades, and Chimera, monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals (upon the body of a lioness with a tail that ended in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine):  Here. 

William Blake, Cerberus. Pen, ink and watercolor over pencil and black chalk, Date unknown (18th century), National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

       Regarding Typhoeus's relation to trapezoidal Ischia, largest of the islands in the Bay of Naples and neighbor to Douglas's compass point, Capri, some versions of the complicated and sometimes contradictory Typhoeus stories inter the vanquished monster underneath Mount Etna in Sicily, but others bury his tangled corpse under the sea at Ischia, giving birth to the island.  

Eternal fires of Chimera in Lycia, Turkey

         As an Ischia tourist website puts it (in slightly awkward, but still servicable, English translation): 

        "According to a legend, the Isle of Ischia was born out of the body of the giant Typhoeus, son of Tartarus and Gaia, who gave him birth with the intention to transform him into an opponent of Zeus and avenger of Cronus, whom she wanted the throne of the gods to be given back.  He looked like a monster with hundreds of snake heads, burning eyes and a voice "now as of a superb bull, with a strong low and an unrestrainable power, now similar to the barking dogs, a marvel to be heard, now whistling and echoing in the big mountains."  The giant, faithful to his mother's teachings, rebels to Zeus, who gets very angry and during a fight throws him into the "depths of Tartarus".  Homer himself mentioned the myth of Typhoeus in his Iliad (II 780-783), but he set the whole scene in the land of the Arimi: "Thus marched the host like a consuming fire, and the earth groaned beneath them when the lord of thunder is angry and lashes the land about Typhoeus among the Arimi, where the say Typhoeus lies." Thus Typhoeus was thrown down the Olympus and generated the island of Ischia.  Today many areas of the island are said to owe their name to the parts of the giants body: Piedmonte (at the feet of the mountain), Testaccio (head), Panza (belly), Cigilo (eyebrow), Molara (molar), etc........."

Ischia

         Adding to the relaxed, late afternoon-early evening, change-of-seasons, vino da pasto atmosphere that I hope suffuses this post, you will find below an interesting 1952 (the year Douglas passed away in Capri) photograph of W.H. Auden in Ischia seated between his portrait and portraitist, Bolivar Patalano.  Patalano, a well-known Ischian painter, according to his friend and fellow artist, Philip Dawes, "lived for about 20 years in the U.S.A., of which ten were spent in prison for the murder of someone with whom he had a drunken brawl  It was in prison that the psychiatrist suggested that he take up painting as a means of calming his emotions and thus he took to painting like a duck to water."

        I like the photo; I wonder what Auden thought of the portrait?

Reader Note: Click on all images to enlarge.

Herakleitos Fragment 17 (Nature Loves)

 

Nature loves to hide.  [Becoming is a secret process].

Trans. Guy Davenport, Herakleitos and Diogenes. San Francisco, Grey Fox Press, 1976.

Herakleitos Fragment 24 (History Is)

 

History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world.

Trans. Guy Davenport, Herakleitos and Diogenes. San Francisco, Grey Fox Press, 1976.

Now And Then (Ray Davies Lyric; Kinks Link)

Nearly full moon, Berwyn, Pennsylvania

March 19, 2011

In the beginning of it all there was the land.

And the sea and the sky --

Then into the middle of it all there came man.

To live on the land --

Now mighty corporations and politicians rule the land!

Wish I could remember when

We were more innocent
Than all of those violent bitter men!

It's too bad the simple ways came sadly to an end;

I guess that's the difference between Now and Then.

One day we'll be born again;

Our lovers and friends will remain,

To live in a world without suffering and pain.

And there'll be no distance between now and then!

In the beginning of it all there was the Land.

Thanksgiving Day sunrise, Cabo San Lucas, Baja Sur, Mexico

November 28, 2006

Smallball

No issue(s) too petty; no remark(s) too slight; the recurrent appearance of mania.  (The lingering effects of 2002 malaria episode?) Very slightly fascinating.

Hardball host, oddball former "journalist" Chris Matthews

 

Rep. Michelle Bachmann, 6th District, Minnesota

Tancho -- The Bird Who Lives 1,000 Years (丹頂) (Thinking of Japan 4)

 

 

        The Red-Crowned Crane (Grus japonensis), also called the Japanese Crane or Manchurian Crane, is a large crane and the second rarest crane in the world.

        In Japan, this crane is known as the tancho and is said to live for 1,000 years. 

        Throughout East Asia, the tancho is known as a symbol of luck, longevity, fidelity and nobility.  In China, the Red-Crowned Crane is often featured in myths and legends.  In Taoism, the Red-Crowned Crane is a symbol of immortality. In art and literature, immortals are often depicted riding on cranes and mortals who attain immortality are similarly described or shown being carried off by cranes. Reflecting this association, Red-Crowned Cranes are called xian he (仙鹤), or fairy cranes.  

        At 140–150 cm (55-60 inches) high, the crane does not make easy prey for all that it stands out in its natural habitat of marshes, swamps, rice fields and other wetlands. When it matures, the Red-Crowned Crane is snow white with a patch of red skin on its head. This patch of skin becomes bright red when the crane becomes angry or excited. This species is the heaviest of the cranes, typically 7.7–10- kg (17-22 lb), although large Sarus Cranes are taller. The maximum known weight of a male Red-Crowned Crane is 15 kg (33 lbs.)

        In the spring and summer, the Red-Crowned Crane breeds in Siberia and occasionally in northeastern Mongolia in the Mongol Daguur Strictly Protected Area. Normally the tancho lays 2 eggs, with only one surviving.  Later, in the fall, it migrates in flocks to Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, and other countries in East Asia to spend the winter. 

        All Red-Crowned Cranes migrate,  except for the a flock that is resident in Hokkaidō, Japan's second largest island (see Hokkaidō photo above).  

        Because of the tancho's importance in Chinese culture and the reverence of the Chinese for the  Red-Crowned Crane, it was selected by the National Forestry Bureau of the People's Republic of China as its only candidate for the national animal of China. This decision was deferred because the Red-Crowned Crane's Latin name translates as "Japanese Crane".  Life is both mundane and curious.

        The Japan national mint features a  pair of tancho in the design for the Series D 1000 yen note. In the Ainu language, the Red-Crowned Crane is known as sarurun kamuy or marsh kamuy.  He is also the symbol of JAL, Japan's national airline.
 

        References to the tancho are prominent in Zen Buddhist poetry, including the following verse by the Soto Zen priest Dogen (1200-1253), founder of the Eiheiji temple, who passed into eternity saying "I drop into the afterworld still living":

The World?  Moonlit

Drops shaken

From the crane's bill 

(trans. Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)

Disaster Tourists (and Linen Bleachers)

 


 

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn,  View of Bloemendaal with the Saxenburg country estate, 1651, Etching and drypoint  (Reader note: Click on image to enlarge.)

        It’s purely a coincidence to be continuing last evening's Dutch escapist theme (the post describing  Hanny’s Voorwerp, the mysterious Green Blob in the Milky Way --  De Melkweg in Dutch -- that is giving birth to new stars), but I was very pleased and comforted yesterday to read the press release from the Rijksmuseum announcing their Dutch Wilderness landscape drawing and print show, which will be on view in Amsterdam from March 15^th through June 20^th.

        The exhibition showcases works by masters including Hendrick Goltzius, Rembrandt (whose 1651 etching and drypoint entitled View of Bloemendaal with the Saxenburg country estate is illustrated above), Esaias van de Velde, Pieter Molijn, Claes van Beresteyn and Aelbert Cuyp, and the press release notes that: 

        “The Dutch landscape was largely created by man, except for the sandy beaches and dunes along the coast, which were mostly created by nature. In the seventeenth century, when the Netherlands was the most urbanised region in Europe, the dunes offered a welcome refuge for the inhabitants of the overcrowded cities. Among those who sought refuge were 17th-century artists such as Goltzius and Rembrandt. Their works portray not only the entertaining qualities of the dunes, but also their grand, quiet and rugged nature.”

        Huigen Leeflang, Rijksmuseum Curator of Prints, goes on to observe: “The dunes were the birthplace of Dutch landscape art. It’s remarkable that the way we experience the dunes has changed little in all those centuries. We still enjoy retreating to the dunes and artists are still inspired by the same grandness and rugged beauty.” 

        To me, the most curious part of the Rijksmuseum’s description of the exhibition is its conclusion, which states that the artworks depict “situations ranging from disaster tourists fascinated by beached whales to city dwellers on trips to the linen bleacher’s.”

 

        Having no idea what either the terms “disaster tourists” or “linen bleacher’s” meant, I decided to do some research.

        I quickly discovered the meaning of the latter term. “Linen bleacher’s” was simply a typo – the writer or translator meant to say “linen bleachers”, i.e., a person bleaching linen, an occupation that would have been more relevant and loomed larger in the pre-Industrial Revolution Dutch mind and consciousness than it does in ours today.  Searching for images of the bleaching of linen, I discovered this charming 1878 stained glass rendering of linen bleachers included below, made by Stephen Adam (1848-1910), a well-known Scottish stained glass artist, and part of a series of twenty works Adam created for for Maryhill Burgh Halls in Glasgow. Each of the windows showed a trade or profession carried on in the burgh, which was established in 1856 and remained independent until it was annexed by Glasgow in 1891. Adam's twenty panels are now part of the People's Palace collections.  

Stephen Adam, The Linen Bleachers, 1878, stained glass (Reader note: Click on image to enlarge.)

        As noted on the very interesting and informative Maryhill Burgh Halls website:

        "A bleachworks was founded on Maryhill Road (the part then called New City Road) in 1855, but this was within the Glasgow City boundaries, and it engaged in chemical bleaching without bleachfields. There was a linen bleachfield at Dalsholm in the eighteenth century, but this was moved to the Vale of Leven in 1770.

        There was only one linen mill of any size in Glasgow by Adam’s time, at St Rollox and it didn’t use bleachfields either. It may have been a cotton bleachfield, for the Kelvindale Mills, but cotton was also bleached chemically by the 1870s. A possibility is that this is an historical image, relating to Maryhill’s pre-1870 past, a lapse from the pattern of the other panels, which show contemporary workplace situations. 

        These two women are spreading linen out to bleach in the sun. There were many bleachfields on open ground on the outskirts of Glasgow by the end of the 18th century. With the invention of bleaching powder in 1799 bleachfields began to disappear from the countryside around the city."

        As for "disaster tourists", that's entirely another, horrible kettle of fish.  As described by Wikipedia, "Disaster tourism is the act of traveling to a disaster area as a matter of curiosity.  The behavior can be a nuisance if it hinders rescue, relief and recovery operations."  Wikipedia adds, oddly but I suppose helpfully, "if not done because of pure curiosity, it can be catalogued as 'disaster learning'."

        I can easily see how in the past a person in Holland might venture to a beach to see the tragic, but highly unusual sight of a beached whale.  I recall one instance in my own childhood growing up near the seashore on Long Island in New York where I was taken to such a scene.  However, the photographs below of "disaster tourists" in Sleman, Yogyakarta in Java visiting the site of the 2010 Mount Merapi eruptions, which accompanied this Agence-France Presse article from February 7th, should give pause (at the very least) and provoke a strong reaction and rueful self-examination. (At least it does in me.)  That being said, and as the article observes, disaster tourism does support and possibly assist in reviving devastated local economies.  I suspect that "disaster tourism" (and perhaps the "disaster tourist gene") has always been around and that it's only recently that the media (and the tourism industry) has given it a name (which curiously makes its way into the press releases of august Dutch museums announcing important exhibitions of older national art by some of their greatest artists).  We ourselves visited the 9/11 World Trade Center site following the terrorist attack in 2001 (of course, we were New Yorkers; it was our city that was attacked), but thought of it more as an act of "bearing witness" to the tragedy that had occurred, rather than a frolic and detour to observe something that had no connection to us and would have no connection to us in the future. 

       As Alphonse Karr would say, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".